We’re neck deep in the run-up to Primary Season. On the national scene, the Republican horse-race for the presidential nomination has been something of a circus. No less than half the field of candidates have had a turn carrying the banner of “front-runner”. This “flavor of the week” elevation and deflation of the candidates is exhausting both to the voters and the office-seekers! Voters are confused, and “undecided” garners more votes than any single candidate! Primary contests for House and Senate seats and even some lesser state and local offices have been no less contentious and chaotic. There must be a way to make sense of it all and select the best choice of candidate to represent our viewpoints!

In today’s educational and political paradigm, where certain people propose to indoctrinate you with what to think rather than train you how to think – and encourage you to do so; it is difficult to even set a criterion by which to analyze and evaluate the various options.

Therefore, I propose to do just that. I will not promote any particular idea or candidate over another here. This method will work for everyone regardless of your political ideology. It will help you analyze how well a candidate represents YOUR views and interestes – not mine. And it can apply outside of politics. It can, for example, be used in hiring decisions when selecting between candidates for a job!

The candidate should be evaluated against the “6 Ps”: Platform, Positions, Policy, Plan,Past Performance and Personal Integrity and Character.

This will help quantify the major questions you need asked and answered: What are his guiding principles? What’s his philosophy? How will he approach implementing it? How’s he done in the past? Can I trust him? (Please assign gender neutrality to the male pronouns – it’s tedious to keep specifying him/her)

You want to understand the candidate’s philosophy, his strategic plan, and his tactical plan.

First, you want to understand where the candidate’s coming from. What’s his philosophy? His core values. What are the non-negotiables for him? What’s his motivation? Understanding his Platform and Positions will give insight here. What is he FIRM on, and where is he “squishy”? Is he uncompromising or pragmatic, and in his pragmatism, will he negotiate away YOUR non-negotiables?

Next, you want to understand what he intends to do with that philosophy! What are the Policies he seeks to pursue and what is his Plan to implement them? Does it make sense to you? Does it seem workable to you. Can you support it? Can you understand it?

What’s the candidate’s track record? How’s he done at what he’s attempted before? As any investment’s prospectus will tell you “past performance is not a guarantee of future results”… however it is a pretty good indicator – especially when used to compare between the various choices!

Finally, character counts! As we learned from the Clinton Era, there are those who will support and defend an individual no matter what he does, as long as he espouses their political view. But if we, as a people, don’t hold our leaders to a certain standard of integrity and character, we will all reap the consequences. No matter how rhetorically “pure” a candidate is on the political issues of the day – if he will compromise his personal integrity, there is no reason to believe he’ll hold fast to a political philosophy and not sell it out for self-interest. Therefore, we must demand from our elected officials a higher standard of character.

Will there be a perfect candidate for you? Only if you yourself are running! Everyone has their own warts. Everyone will have some area of disagreement, whether philosophically, strategically or tactically. But you can analyze the field and put your support with the candidate who most closely represents your views and interests. This method will simply help you logically determine which of the available candidates is closest.

Once you make that determination, go all in. Support your candidate. Remember, however, that once the primaries are over and one candidate has prevailed, he may or may not be your first choice. If your candidate fails to win the nomination, don’t be a “sour grapes” voter and sit out the general election. Your second, third or even fourth choice in the primary still probably represents your interests and values better than the opposition in the general election

I have determined the time has come to examine the last few decades of American History, do some analysis, and ask some poignant questions to allow the reader to draw some conclusions and to question some presumptions.

Let’s start with the 60s. A time when racism was common, segregation, discrimination and bigotry were institutional, and “the man” truly was keeping the black community down.

But “the man” wasn’t your typical right-wing conservative! It was primarily the DEMOCRATS!

The early civil right movement was supported and encouraged by the GOP and conservatives. Civil rights legislation was OPPOSED and even filibustered not by those evil right-wing conservatives, but by the LEFT WING Democrats! Bull Connor, whose name is practically synonymous with racism and civil-rights opposition, was not only a Democrat; he was Democratic National Committeeman for Alabama! He ran for Governor on the Democrat ticket. He led the Alabama delegation to the 1948 Democratic National Convention to walk out over a civil-rights plank in the platform!

Another iconic Democrat, George Wallace, served as Governor of Alabama. In his INAUGURAL SPEECH he made the following statement: “In the name of the greatest people that have ever trod this earth, I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny, and I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!”

Lyndon Johnson is hailed today as a liberal pioneer and champion of civil rights, but Johnson himself was a notorious racist and no lover of our black brethren. He did, however, view them as a malleable resource. He did not oppose civil rights legislation (which, by the way, was supported by the GOP and opposed by many democrats, and would never have passed without the GOP). Instead he supported it as a means of securing power for Democrats. He is famously quoted as saying “I’ll have these (n-words) voting Democrat for the next 100 years!” He was right! For the last half of that predicted century – the black community has been a monolithic voting bloc, supporting democrats about 97%.

How’s that workin’ out for ya?

Johnson doubled down on Civil Rights – sensible, reasonable, moral and appropriate legislation – and ushered in the “War on Poverty”.

Vastly expanding on FDR’s New Deal Welfare State, Johnson ushered in a whole new culture, creating generational dependency and a paradigm of the entitlement mentality.

By providing a bare subsistence, but requiring nothing from the recipients; by subsidizing out of wedlock childbearing; by setting the “soft bigotry of low expectations”; a new “system” was created and the “underprivileged” soon learned the rules of the game to receive a meager but adequate living at government expense… without having to learn, earn or contribute to their own subsistence. Add to this the deference to the Educational Cabal which promoted the teaching unions and denied vouchers and school choice, and the urban schools became cesspools where thriving educationally was virtually impossible. A new dependency class was born – and could be counted on to vote for their “benefactors”. How’s that workin’ out for ya?

The “war on poverty” is lost! More people live near or below the poverty line than when the programs were started. And for the record, there are as many poor whites as blacks, gaming the same system. There are as many whites on assistance or food stamps today as blacks. The “dependency culture” is not melanin specific!

Now let’s look at the 70s

Carter instituted the “Community Reinvestment Act” – ostensibly ending the banking practice of “redlining” which essentially declared entire neighborhoods to be bad loan risks. A laudable purpose… but the real result of the Act was to force banks to abandon sound underwriting principles and risk assessment, and to make unwise loans to those who were at high risk of default. This was the beginning of the “Sub Prime” Housing Debacle!

Nevermind that Carter’s other leftist policies drove the country to a “malaise” that brought us to the brink of another 30s style depression. The CRA (and Clinton’s doubling down on it under the direction of ACORN in the 90s) set in motion the mortgage crisis, the Fannie/Freddie crisis, the banking crisis and ultimately all the economic woes currently being blamed on George Bush!

So how’s THAT workin’ out for ya?

The 80s saw a brief respite! Reagan’s tax cuts DOUBLED revenues and spurred economic growth unparalleled in at least 30 years! Despite the Tip O’Neal Congress increasing spending $1.84 for every dollar in new revenue, thus creating the so-called “Reagan Deficits”… the economy generally thrived and expanded. Unemployment was down. Interest rates came down. Inflation came down. Standards of living went up. There was optimism in America.

Are you old enough to remember? Do you miss those days?

The 90s were a mixed bag. Clinton strengthened and expanded the Community Reinvestment Act – placing even more odious regulations on the banks and essentially telling them they MUST make loans to people who can’t afford them. The mentality that homeownership is a right superseded the notion that Americans have a right to purchase any home they can afford! The stage was set for collapse, and collapse it did in the latter half of Bush’s 2nd term. But remember that it was the Bush Administration and the GOP in Congress who raised the red flag in 2005, with the Fannie Freddie Hearings (check ‘em out on YouTube!) while the powerful Dems – Dodd, Frank, Waters, Clay etc. all stood up to defend Fannie/Freddie and it’s leadership. “Nope, no problems here! Nothing to see here, folks, move along. Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!”

How’s THAT workin’ out for ya?

Still there was a silver lining to the 90s. In 1994 the Gingrich Revolution and the Contract With America swept the GOP into power in the Congress. With Newt at the helm, Clinton was dragged kicking and screaming to a balanced budget and the first actual SURPLUSSES in 50 years – which of course Clinton took credit for, and which the complicit press has turned into accepted fact over the subsequent decade! The positive numbers continued until 9/11 and the War on Terror.

The millennial decade is largely misunderstood. Bush is touted by the left as the worst president ever. They blame him and the wars for our economic difficulties at the end of his presidency. But the reality is different from the narrative.

It’s true that the dot-com bubble burst, 9/11 and the wars took a toll on the economy. We fell from surplus to deficit as we ramped up military action.

Still, Bush’s WORST deficit in his first 6 years (while he had a GOP Congress) was around $430 Billion in 2003. Yup, His WORST deficit was around half the cost of the Obama Stimulus alone! Still, that was a big number for its time. So what did Bush do? He instituted the Bush Tax Cuts that are once again in the news today! The result? 3 consecutive years of reducing deficits! The last deficit with a GOP Congress, the deficit was cut to only $120 Billion, a reduction of nearly 2/3 in 3 years. Still, six years into his presidency, Bush was soundly and rightly criticized four raising our 4 Trillion Dollar National Debt by 50% to 6 Trillion. And the reins of Congress were turned over to Pelosi/Reid. By the time Obama took office, Pelosi/Reid had added a TRILLION to our deficit, and 3 more Trillion to the Debt! NOTICE that in 2 years Pelosi and Company added 3 Trillion, while it took Bush and the GOP 6 years to add 2 Trillion.

So Obama comes into office with a 9 Trillion dollar debt. In his time occupying the White House, we’ve seen the debt balloon from 9 Trillion to 15 Trillion… more than a 50% growth in 3 years!

How’s THAT workin’ out for ya?

Are you starting to notice a pattern here?

It’s been said that if you tax something, you get less of it. If you subsidize something you get more of it. Why, then, do we tax success and subsidize failure?

There are few opportunities for legislation that holds the prospect of gain for EVERYONE who supports it, regardless of party or ideology – but amazingly, the repeal of ObamaCare offers that very opportunity, if our elected officials would but examine the possibilities!!

First and foremost, the majority of America rejects ObamaCare and supports its repeal. So you’ve got popular support. For the Democrats, that majority thing ought to be a biggie. After all, they’re all about direct democracy, aren’t they? Majority rules, right?

But as I’ve been quick to point out on many occasions, not everything that’s popular is right, and not everything that’s right is popular, so let’s look at some other motivations that might move our members of Congress to action.

Dems should consider that ObamaCare is about to undergo a major review by the Supreme Court. Even with Kagan participating and not (properly) recusing herself from the case – there is a very strong possibility that at least some part of ObamaCare will be struck down – if not in its entirety! This would deal a major blow to the party that rammed it through without a single GOP vote, after arm twisting and bribery by Pelosi, generally UNREAD, which had to be PASSED so we could know what’s in it! Not only was it bad law, passed in an unscrupulous manner against the will of the people, but SCOTUS will also give the slap of unconstitutionality to at least part of it. That stings.

Why not get out in front of this and defuse it by repealing ObamaCare and making a SCOTUS review moot?

And likewise, GOP, what if SCOTUS only finds PART of ObamaCare unconstitutional? Do you want to HAVE to live with any part they find legit enough not to strike down? Are you confident that Kennedy will hang tough with the conservatives on the Court ENOUGH to do away with ObamaCare? What kind of mixed bag of upheld and struck down provisions might we have to contend with?

But hey, Republicans, here’s the BEST reason to move on repeal. YOU PROMISED TO! You were ELECTED to! The whole point of the Mid-Term Elections was to put you in a position to. And you’ve forgotten all about it. That will not sit well come primary season!

Back to the Dems. Since you took the reins of Congress in January 2007, we watched the deficit climb from 120 Billion at the end of GOP control of Congress, to nearly 15 times that amount at 1.7 Trillion. We watched the National debt climb from 6 Trillion after 6 years of Bush and 2 wars to nearly 14 Trillion in 4 years of Pelosi/Reid. So whatever Bush Bashing you may do, and however much you seek to blame Bush and say Obama INHERITED his problems… the American People understand that you are the party of spending with reckless abandon. A reality, and a perception you may do well to strive to reverse!

The Super-Committee is charged with finding a Trillion in cuts over 10 years. A pittance! That’s really only 100 Billion a year… and they can’t do it! If the automatic cuts kick in, the military will be slashed, and lefty ideologues aside (as they represent only around 20% of the population) the people of America DO NOT want to see the military slashed by 500 Billion!

Repealing ObamaCare will save TRILLIONS over a decade. All by itself. Your precious spending programs don’t even have to be touched, and you can claim victory in achieving the spending reduction!

For the GOP, repealing ObamaCare is a victory fiscally, and ideologically, protecting individual rights, reigning in an egregious over-reach by the federal oligarchy.

For all of you. Repeal would result in an economic recovery far exceeding the wildest dreams or expectations of any program or stimulus the Administration has considered, offered or implemented! Companies, freed from the shackles of ObamaCare, would loosen the hiring constraints. Jobs, production, GDP and tax revenues would all climb – and true to Reagan’s quote… a rising tide does indeed lift all boats. And you could all claim credit for stimulating the economy out of the worst “recession” (depression) in our lifetimes at least!

Back to the Dems. Are you REALLY supportive of affordable healthcare for people? Then realize how many companies are ready to ABANDON providing care when ObamaCare is fully implemented!! I know many of you are idealogically committed to Single-Payer healthcare, and such a collapse of the private and employer provided market would leave a vacuum that you’d feel compelled to fill with Government care… but America resoundingly doesn’t want it! Given the choice between the private enterprise Hospitals like Barnes, Mayo, Mt Sinai, or Hopkins, and government care like say, a VA hospital, which do you think most Americans would opt for? Even if they pay for private insurance?

If ObamaCare is SO GOOD for people, why the waivers for so many FOD’s (Friends of Democrats)? And why is Congress exempt?

ObamaCare is a boondoggle. It’s an embarrassment to the Dems and CAUSED the massacre of 2010. It’s impractical. It’s unsustainable. And eliminating it will save TRILLIONS.

Truly. WHAT are y’all waiting for? How about a nice Christmas present THIS year? America said THANK YOU for Pelosi’s Christmas Present of 2009 with the November 2010 elections. Repeal for Christmas 2011 would be a present America would TRULY appreciate!

The big story in the GOP race for the presidential nomination for the last couple months has been Herman Cain. From his meteoric rise to the top as Conservatives were quickly disenchanted with Rick Perry, to the wall-to-wall coverage of sexual harassment allegations; Herman Cain has been propelled into the public consciousness. So let’s take a look.

Cain’s background is impressive. Born during a time when racial prejudice was the norm, to a mother who worked as a cleaning woman and a father who held down three jobs (janitor, barber and chauffer) just to make ends meet, Cain applied himself to education and earned a degree in Mathematics. Yes, Mathematics – not political science, sociology, or Liberal Arts. The man understands MATH. Probably a good idea for one who seeks the presidency at a time of trillion dollar deficits and massive debt!

From there he went on to earn a Masters Degree in Computer Science. He understands technology - another good idea for one aspiring to lead the nation in the age of tablet PCs, smart-phones, Facebook and Twitter.

Parts of his business career are well known. His legendary leadership of Godfathers Pizza, where his stint as CEO saved the company; and his term on the board of directors at the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank are fairly common knowledge. His suddenly controversial time as CEO of the National Restaurant Association is also becoming well known.

Lesser known, perhaps, are his service with the Navy, where he designed Fire Control Systems; a time working for Coca Cola, and his Vice Presidency of Pillsbury. He also has a radio program and writes as a columnist.

Cain’s prowess as a businessman is undeniable. He understands markets, economics, problem solving, power delegation, responsibility and accountability. His leadership skills are unassailable.

Political wonks may remember, but it bears pointing out to the public at large that during Herman Cain’s tenure as CEO of the National Restaurant Association, he attended a televised Town Hall meeting where Bill Clinton was defending his proposed healthcare reform, later to be known as “HillaryCare”. Clinton was claiming that his reform would not harm American business owners. Cain spoke up, saying, “Quite honestly, Mr. President, your calculations are incorrect. In the competitive marketplace, it simply doesn’t work that way.”

Cain’s words resonated through the nation, and Newsweek later credited him as the “primary saboteur” of HillaryCare.

Unlike Mitt Romney, Cain has a long history of standing up AGAINST government healthcare. This took place in 1994.

So what of these harassment allegations?

Only Herman Cain and the accusers know exactly what took place… but we can look objectively at what we do know and try to make sense of it.

The allegations were made in 1998. The Restaurant Association settled with the 2 women with one getting around $30,000 and the other around $45,000, according to the Politico. This represented a year’s salary. No civil action was ever brought against Cain personally.

To anyone familiar with business or with the legal system, making a settlement payout, especially one so small – relatively speaking – is certainly not prima facie evidence that an allegation has merit! It’s nuisance insurance. Companies will often settle such claims rather than invest time and expense in fighting off spurious complaints and allegations. It’s part of the cost of doing business and if you investigate any company of size, or any CEO of prominence, you’ll probably find somewhere, sometime, that they settled a meritless claim against them!

But let’s leave aside the he-said, she-said for a time. It is much more interesting and telling to analyze the REACTIONS to these allegations coming to light.

Here we see Herman Cain, a successful black CONSERVATIVE man, and a rising star politically who could very well take a position of power a year from now.

Black conservatism is on the rise, and threatens the very fabric of the Democrat demographic. Successful black conservatives run counter to the narrative that empowers the Left: that blacks are oppressed and unable to achieve apart from white liberal beneficence! That blacks need liberals to “take care of them”. Blacks are indoctrinated to believe that success is impossible – unless that success comes from pimping the very dependence and victimhood that empowers the left… like Jackson, Sharpton and Obama! But let a black man apply conservative principles and attain success, and he will become a target. While no black man CAN succeed on the Democrat’s plantation of enforced dependency… no black man may be allowed to succeed if they’re OFF that plantation! Especially if that success leads to prominence, public attention, or worse – political power!

Hearken back to the early 90s and Clarence Thomas!

Remember that the Anita Hill allegations were based on little more than a coke can – and a hair described as “pubic” but which could easily have fallen innocently off the head of a black man. Coarse curly hair may have a “pubic” association in the white mind… but could be found on the bathroom sink of most any black man who combs his hair or trims his beard in front of a mirror!

Still, the Left and their willing accomplices in the media did everything they could to turn this allegation into the “borking” of Clarence Thomas’ nomination to the Supreme Court. Not because it had any bearing whatsoever on his character, but because they saw it as a weapon to use to derail a black conservative on his way to a position of power and influence.

The duplicity and hypocrisy of the left is astoundingly striking when it comes to such allegations as those leveled against Thomas and Cain.

On such flimsy evidence as a Coke can or a hand gesture and comment about one’s height, the entire character of a man is held in question… yet water was carried for a John Edwards until the NATIONAL ENQUIRER did the journalistic job the mainstream press WOULDN’T do and presented incontrovertible evidence that finally proved his downfall. And the left went so far as to REDEFINE SEX in defense of Bill Clinton, when there was a stained blue dress as evidence of his misdeeds in the very Oval Office!

The attempt to derail the Cain Train with these allegations may well backfire, as the American People are seeing through the dirty politics. Some free advice to those who oppose a Cain presidency (whether on the left or the right): If you find fault with his policies, platform, plan or proposals, then debate those issues on their merits. But the politics of personal destruction has seen its heyday and it has come and gone. The American people are tired of it, and will punish the purveyors of it with their votes.

A leftist caller into a morning talk-show that is part of my daily drive was spouting the “no skin off their back” class envy line about the “Buffett Rule” and soaking the rich. Aside from simply annoying me with his ignorance, I found myself realizing that these people who buy into the Class Envy story line will not be swayed by any of the arguments of the unfairness of the excessive tax burden borne by the top income earners. They pull out their “world’s smallest violin” and play “Cry Me a River”. Their attitude is, “They can afford it.” Or, “They’ve still got plenty, AFTER taxes.”

So persuading these people must take another tack. We must convince them of two truths: 1) the so called “Buffett Rule” will hurt not only the rich, but everyone, including them; and 2) The math DOESN’T work!

The big push from the administration is that Capital Gains rates are lower than the Income Tax Rate of the middle class, so they want to raise the Capital Gains Tax Rate. Of course, there is a very good reason Capital Gains are taxed at a lower rate… but that’s not the focus here. Let’s just stick to our two primary premises!

Raising Capital Gains rates affects not only the Wealthy… but EVERYONE who has investment income! If you have an IRA, 401K, Pension, mutual fund or any other investment – it will affect you. Raising Capital Gains tax rates means your retirement fund will not have as big a nest egg for you when you retire. That’s not the fat cats being hurt… it’s YOU, or it’s your PARENTS. It’s the guy who worked hard all his life and seeks to retire and live on the fruits of his labor. The less that a middle class family can acquire toward retirement during their earning years, the more dependent they will be on Social Security or other Government Largesse… which seems to be exactly the goal of the Leftists, and exactly the cause of our economic demise!

The mantra of the Left is that no matter how much the wealthy pay, they aren’t paying their “fair share”. The upper income earners do pay the lions share, shouldering on the order of 70% of the total tax burden while half of America has NO income tax liability and a goodly portion reap a refund they didn’t pay into via refundable credits – meaning that even if they paid NOTHING IN AT ALL they can still get a “refund” (though a “refund” is a misnomer implying return of an OVER PAYMENT! Just how is contributing NOTHING an overpayment?)

According to the latest Government Figures, the earnings total of ALL people in the USA was around 7.8 Trillion Dollars a year.

Government already spends about half of that, with our 3.5+ Trillion Dollar “budget” (well, we haven’t actually PASSED a budget in over 3 years… but that’s a technicality!)

Obama and Co want to raise that level to $5 Trillion, with the Trillion and a Half NEW spending he’s proposing! So, more than 5/8th of ALL MONEY goes thru Government hands??

They scoffed when conservatives warned that the Left sought to take over the entire economy. The laughed and poo-pooed when we warned that the move toward Government Healthcare was a takeover of 1/6 of the economy. They ignored when the government "nationalized" 2/3 of our auto industry and threatened to "socialize... er... er... take over" the oil industry. But here you go! Government now passes almost half of ALL money in the economy thru it's hands... and obama's shooting for over 60%!

And, of course, the “wealthy” are supposed to foot the bill! Obama says that’s not “Class Warfare” but it’s “Math”!

The math doesn’t work! The “Rich” footing the bill is a concept that doesn’t FIT the bill!!

Of the 7.8 Trillion earned by ALL Americans, only 17.5% of that total, or about 1.37 Trillion was earned by those making $200K or more a year!!

So, confiscating every dollar earned by every person making 200K a year or more wouldn’t even meet our current deficit of $1.6 Trillion! In fact, since these people ALREADY PAY taxes on this money, confiscating it all would only net about $1Trillion in additional revenue! Well, ONCE anyway, as there would be no business, no jobs and no economy at all if they did implement such a confiscation!

The fact is, and always has been, that the profligate SPENDING problem in Government can’t be solved by revenue! Reagan DOUBLED revenues, yet all we hear about are the “Reagan Deficits” – more properly dubbed the Tip O’Neal deficits as Reagan’s reasonable budgets were pronounced “dead on arrival” and the O’Neal congress spent $1.84 in new spending for every dollar in new revenue Reagan’s tax cuts generated!

The irrefutable, uncomfortable truth is that Government simply spends too much!

Bush’s worst deficit with a GOP congress was in 2003, at around $420 Billion. That’s half the cost of Obama’s first failed stimulus! The 2003 tax cuts REDUCED the deficit each year thereafter until the reins of power passed to Pelosi/Reid in 2007. But the deficit was reduced to $120 Billion when that baton was passed! THAT’s the deficit Pelosi/Reid inherited! They also inherited a Triple A credit rating and a budget around 2 Trillion a year.

In their 4 years in power, the deficit ballooned to 14 or 15 times that 2006 deficit. Our spending grew from 2 Trillion to 3 and a half Trillion, and Obama would have it at 5 Trillion!

The issue is not, and never will be a matter of Government not appropriating enough money. It is, was, and ever will be the reckless spending of those who wish to buy votes, and retire before the bill comes due.

Margaret Thatcher famously stated that the problem with Socialism is that at some point you run out of other people’s money. We see that happening throughout Socialist Europe. And we have Obama, Pelosi and Reid for bringing the USA to that point now. Is it any wonder that Standard and Poor downgraded our credit? Who still has “full faith” in the credit of the USA?

This week I heard yet another black liberal caller to a conservative radio program who felt “offended” that there was so much opposition to “America’s First Black President.” As I listened, (frustrated that I couldn’t just call and debate this guy since I was in the parking lot about to walk into my day-job) I began to think just how racist the caller’s line of thinking was! He was defending the President based SOLEY on his race. Irrespective of the President’s policies, plan, purpose or performance – he was deemed unassailable because he is black. But is he?

Does the caller not realize that there is the same opposition to these policies when they’re put forth by the white Pelosi, the white Reid, the white Barney Frank, the white Dick Durbin etc?

Is Obama immune from criticism by virtue of his dark skin? Is it impossible for a black president to suck? Does the caller not realize that Obama is half white, and his other half is 7/8 north African Arab (think Ghaddafi not Mandella)? Does he identify with the 1/16 of Obama’s Black African Roots when there is virtually no “slave blood” in Obama?

In their zeal to put a man of color… ANY man of color… into the White House, Black America has helped elect THIS man to the presidency. And America is not the better for it.

Meanwhile, some black elected officials have been making some remarkable public statements.

Congressional Black Caucus member Andre Carson tells us the Tea Party wants to see blacks hanging from trees! Not only a ridiculously false assertion, but an incendiary one intended to incite unrest and possible violence!

And then there’s that brilliant Congresswoman, Sheila Jackson Lee, who claimed that the House was “complicating” the debt ceiling talks because Obama was black.

Maxine Waters tells us that the Tea Party is racist, and that they can “go to hell”. This coming from the Marxist that let the cat out of the back in May of 2008 when she admitted the intent to “socialize” the oil industry… and who most recently threatened banks to modify loans for people who can’t afford them or she would have the Gubmit “tax them out of existence”.

Someone should remind Ms Waters of that pesky document, the Constitution, which was designed to limit the powers of the federal government! Article 1, Section 9 prohibits something called a “Bill of Attainder”. In the context of the Constitution, a Bill of Attainder is meant to mean a bill that has a negative effect on a single person or group (for example, a fine, a tax, or term of imprisonment). So singling out banks for special tax punishment would be unconstitutional!

The fact of the matter is that the race card is played because historically it worked. Shouting “racist” ended the debate and sent the opposition scurrying for cover, despite the accusation being entirely unfounded.

But we are in a new paradigm! We have an environment today where a black man not only theoretically CAN, but in fact HAS been elected President; where a black man like Herman Cain can serve as Chairman of a bank, and CEO of a major Pizza chain; where blacks truly have attained Dr. King’s dream of being judged on the content of their character rather than the color of their skin! Blacks who avail themselves of educational opportunities, who apply themselves to acquiring and developing marketable skills, are able to advance themselves as well as whites who do the same. And Americans are awakening to the agenda of the race-baiters as advancing their own interests and not that of the black community at large! The race-card is becoming passé. It’s an anachronism; an archaic curiosity. It’s as relevant as a buggy whip in a Chevy dealership!

Sadly, for those who have never developed a legitimate case with which to debate their failed policies in the arena of ideas… the Race Card is the only card in their hand. Sadly for them, it is no longer trump, it is no longer the wild-card. Resorting to playing the race-card is no longer seen as striking from a position of strength – it is viewed as an act of desperation by one without any other resource. And that view is accurate.

Democratic Party Chair, Debbie Wasserman Schultz famously stated last May that “We own the economy. We own the beginning of the turnaround and we want to make sure that we continue that pace of recovery, not go back to the policies of the past under the Bush administration that put us in the ditch in the first place,” Well, the first part of that was true! They own the economy! And they have since America foolishly entrusted Congress to the leadership of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid back in 2006!

We’ll discuss the remainder of Wasserman Schulz’ statement in a moment… but first let’s establish a little historical background.

George Bush took office in January 2001 with a National Debt of 4 Trillion Dollars. The economy was riding the bubbles of the tech explosion and the easy money in the housing market. Less than a year later, we experienced the dot-com bust and the attacks of 9-11. Remember that 9-11 was a DIRECT assault on our economy – the attack was directed at the WORLD TRADE CENTER… both a symbolic and a de-facto heart of our world commerce. We naturally tend to focus on the loss of life and property, and well we should. But the economic impact of that attack was enormous as well.

So we went to war.

How many times have you heard how military spending and Bush’s wars have bankrupted us? Undoubtedly so many you can’t put a number to it! But let’s examine the facts.

Remember the 87 billion dollars that John Kerry balked about… voting for it before voting against it back in 2004? That was to fund those 2 wars for a year! Is 87 billion dollars a lot of money? Hell yes! But we spent less on both wars in a decade than Obama’s stimulus cost us in one year! So a little perspective, please!

But I digress.

The economy took a hit after 9/11, and our deficit climbed. By 2003 it had soared to 420 billion dollars. While a deficit that size would be a major blessing today, at the time it was historically large! So what did George Bush do?

TAX CUTS!

And the left went nuts. But the tax cuts did what tax cuts always do; revenues increased! The deficit fell each of the following 3 years until; in 2006 the deficit was reduced from a high of 450 billion in 2003 by more than 2/3 to 120 billion.

In 2004, Congressional Republicans began hearings on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and started waving red flags about the sub-prime mortgage threat. They were demanding MORE oversight and regulation of these entities and warned of the dangers of forcing lending institutions to make home loans to people who can’t afford them.

Who came to the defense of Fannie and Freddie, claiming there were no problems and there’s “nothing to see here”? Chris Dodd, Barney Frank, Maxine Waters etc!

The Democrats created the problem with Carter and the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977. Under guise of “encouraging” lending institutions to “meet the needs” of home borrowers in “moderate income areas”… this act empowered ACORN and other community organizing groups to pressure banks into making ill advised loans to people who simply would never be able to repay them. You may wish to read about the act here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_Reinvestment_Act

All sorts of new lending vehicles were created. Interest only loans? How is that different from rent? One never gains any equity! Balloon notes? Get people into the house with an affordable payment, only to watch it skyrocket out of sight in a few years?

The Community Reinvestment Act was revisited by Clinton and even more regulations were placed on the banks. The bubble was expanding faster now, and would soon burst.

Then we handed the reins of Congress, and the purse-strings, to Pelosi and Reid. Bush had 2 years of his term remaining. And yes, we were driven into the ditch during those 2 years. But it wasn’t Bush that was driving… it was Pelosi and Reid!

In their first year, they tripled the deficit to 450 billion… 30 billion more than Bush’s worst deficit with a GOP congress. And in their 2ndyear they tripled that to 1.3 Trillion dollars! (More than 10 times the 2006 deficit!) They added 3 trillion to the debt in just 2 years, so Bush left office with a 9 trillion dollar debt.

Bush had added 2 trillion with a GOP Congress in his first 6 years. And 3 trillion more (a 50% increase in debt) in his last 2 years under the Pelosi/Reid 110thCongress. In 2006 all of government spending was right around 2 trillion dollars. Pelosi/Reid swelled the budget to 3.5 trillion in their 4 years!

Barack Obama took office, and the democrat triumvirate of Obama/Pelosi/Reid went on a spending spree. The debt increased by another 5 trillion in 2 years. Under a GOP presidency with a GOP congress, after 5 years of war, our debt was 6 trillion. After 4 years of Pelosi-Reid, it is over 14 Trillion… and 5 trillion of that added in Obama’s first 2 years. Remember that it took 230 years and 42 presidents to bring our debt to 5 trillion. And the democrat triumvirate managed to raise our debt by 5 trillion in 2 years. Interest payments on the debt have more than doubled in 4 years.

Yes. Democrats own the economy.

And the downgrade?

Consider a family with a household income of $21,700 a year. They have been spending $38,200 a year and added $16,500 to their credit card balances in the last year. Their cards are at limit. They are $142,710 in debt on their cards. They sat down to make a budget, and managed to find $385 in cuts they could live with.

You’re the bank. Do you give them another loan?

Add 8 zeros to each of the numbers above. That’s our federal government.

But what about the remainder of Wasserman Schultz’ comments:

“We own the beginning of the turnaround and we want to make sure that we continue that pace of recovery…”

There are some on the right - Mitch McConnell chief amongst them - who fear that the GOP's stance on principle against debt and taxes will backlash against them politically. They are willing to compromise so they appear to be "reasonable", and willing to work with the Democrats, as they capitulate to the further destruction of the American economy and to Obama's "Fundamental Transformation" of who and what we are as a nation.

They are pointing to the Gingrich/Clinton Showdown of late 1995 and early 1996 and the Government Shutdown, which some feel had a detrimental effect on the GOPs popularity and fortunes. But their memories are faulty and their analysis is flawed! Let's analyze the fallout from that showdown!

Please take note of the Federal Debt Chart posted.

Notice that our longest stretch WITHOUT a debt limit increase was from 96 to 2001!! Our 96 Deficit was $107 Billion and after the showdown we had surpluses till 9/11! In 2000 we had a $236 Billion surplus!

Clinton’s popularity SUFFERED during the shutdown! The press then hammered Gingrich as a “crybaby”, which his own persona fostered. GINGRICH’s PERSONAL popularity fell, but the GOP held the house for another 10 years till 2006, and the senate remained in GOP hands all that time except 2000 to 2002! And we elected BUSH in 2000.

Some folks blame Clinton’s re-election on Gingrich’s showdown at the end of 95 and beginning of 96… but Dole SUCKED as a candidate. He was the first McCain! Dole's defeat was because of DOLE!

In all, the Gingrich/Clinton showdown was extremely good for the country, and not bad for the GOP either! Gingrich HIMSELF denounces the decision not to blink, because he personally suffered a popularity drop... but his own issues contributed to that loss of popularity, not just the showdown with Clinton! Today he's barely moving the needle of presidential candidate popularity... and may run one of the shortest presidential campaigns in history! CONSERVATIVES have abandoned hom because he abandoned them! Remember his Global Warming Pow-Wow with Pelosi? He's gone squishy on a number of Conservative issues!

Some IMPORTANT differences between 1996 and today:

Our national debt in 1996 was under 4 Trillion. Today it’s 14 Trillion.

Our deficit was $107 Billion. Today it’s 1.5 TRILLION+.

Spending in 1996 was under $1.9 Trillion. Today it’s $3.4 Trillion.

In 1996, the American People were not sitting on the edge of economic Armageddon. In fact, the economy was doing well was about to rev up! The sleeping giant of American Conservatism was still asleep. While restraint of government growth was important even then... it was not on the radar of the average-joe American at the time.

Today, we are experiencing the TRUE “Worst economy since the Great Depression” and a majority of people understand it’s Obama’s policies that have worsened and extended our economic woes! Under 4 years of Pelosi/Reid we saw a TRILLION DOLLAR increase in annual spending. And ALL OF THAT was deficit spending (borrowed money)! We TRIPLED the deficit. We more than doubled the debt. In 2006 our National Debt was $6 Trillion, and that was after Bush was ROUNDLY and RIGHTLY criticized for increasing it by 50% from $4 Trillion to $6 Trillion over his first 6 years… but he had the dot-com bubble, 9/11 and two wars to contend with! Pelosi/Reid took it from $6 Trillion to $14 Trillion in 4 short years.

THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ARE BEGINNING TO UNDERSTAND THIS! They are telling Congress to CUT, CAP & BALANCE. They’re telling Congress that they OVERSPEND. They’re saying NO to Debt and Taxes!

There is NO REASON to allow political fear to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, either in the budget battle or in the 2012 elections! We are RIGHT. We must STAND for right. We must stand on principles and let the chips fall where they may politically. To the surprise of some, and the delight of most… those chips will fall in the direction of the Conservative Movement!

The United States is over $14 Trillion in debt. We’re spending over $3 Trillion a year, and of that, over $1.6 Trillion is deficit (borrowed) spending. We all know this is insanity. We are now up against the debt ceiling AGAIN, and , at least so far, the GOP is holding the line. But “compromise” is in the wind as a deluge of misinformation is constantly being pumped out of the administration. It is time to both set the record straight, and to admonish the GOP leadership, as well as its rank-and-file, that caving in to negotiate with the socialists and surrender to compromise is NOT a viable option!

We must “Just Say No!” to anything and everything the Democrats propose except draconian cuts to spending!

Say no to new taxes, tax rate hikes, new “fees” or any other action which the Dems deem “revenue enhancement”. These are doomed to fail in their intended purpose… increased revenue… and will have deleterious effect on the American People, and on the already hobbled economy.

Say no to new borrowing and increasing our already incomprehensibly irresponsible debt load. Do not accept ANY increase in the debt ceiling! It is supposed to be a “this far and no further CEILING!” Congress has raised this ceiling so often it seems to have no meaning… and both parties were guilty! Under President Bush it was raised 7 times in 8 years. (Not quite once a year.) In his first 6 years with a GOP congress, the debt went from $4 Trillion to $6 Trillion. This was a 50% increase and he came under severe and well-deserved criticism! http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-500803_162-4486228-500803.html

But thanks to the election of November, 2006, the reigns of Congress and the keys to the coffers were handed to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. In their first 2 years, they added another $3 Trillion to the debt, taking us to $9 Trillion and a debt ceiling short of $10 Trillion when Bush left office.

The debt ceiling has only been raised 3 times so far under Obama in his short 2 and a half years… (Just over once a year) but each time it was by astronomical, multi-trillion dollar numbers!

Obama came into office with a $9 Trillion debt. It is now over $14 Trillion, meaning that in the time he’s been in office, he raised the debt by $5 Trillion, which is a Trillion more than all the debt accumulated in the first 224 years of the United States… the sum total of every administration from Washington through Clinton! Bush came into office with a debt of $4 Trillion. In his first 6 years with a GOP Congress, he added 2 Trillion, or 333 Billion a year. Obama increased our debt by $5 Trillion in his first 30 months!

The insane spending by the 110th and 111th Pelosi/Reid Congresses increased spending by more than a Trillion dollars a year. Were we NOT spending enough in 2006? (By the way, in 2006 our deficit was only $120 BILLION. Our current deficit is nearly $1.7 Trillion, almost 15 TIMES LARGER!)

Supposedly all that spending was to “stimulate the economy” that was so bad under Bush! Well, how’s that working out for you?? Obama promised that the Stimulus would keep unemployment under 8%! EPIC FAIL! Under Obama's application of the Keynesian economic model, demanding more government spending to “stimulate” the economy toward recovery… we’ve had ample demonstration of the failure of the model! All we have to show for all that “stimulus” spending is a further damaged economy, increased unemployment, increased business failures, increased foreclosures, decreased tax revenues and massive debt!

So now we come to the debt ceiling. Government is about to once again max out their credit cards.

In the real world, someone who spends 30% above their income and lives on credit to maintain their lifestyle would soon reach their credit limit. Would any responsible lending institution give them additional cards or raise their limit when they are unable to afford their CURRENT level of debt? Of course not! So why should the American People stand for their representatives in Congress voting to themselves an increase in their ability to borrow yet more?

The answer, of course, is to CUT THE SPENDING! But the Democrats refuse to believe there is any spending that deserves the axe!

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Having increased our spending levels by 50% in just the last 4 years, what part of that CAN’T be cut? We survived 230 years as a nation without some of the new programs, departments, agencies, and projects that have been newly funded over the last 4 years! ObamaCare is a nightmarish boondoggle which the People have resoundingly rejected! It’s time for Congress to have the cojones to stand up and pass utter, complete, “as-if-it-never-occurred” repeal of that monstrosity!

The President has stated “We can’t cut our way to prosperity.” The reply should be a resounding ”YES WE CAN!” It is our spending and debt that are keeping the engine of our economy from chugging its way to growth!

The Dems have proposed the 14 Amendment as an end-around Congress for Obama to singlehandedly increase our borrowing. But in fact that very text is the rebuttal to the Dem’s “sky is falling” predictions of default if we fail to raise the debt ceiling!

Paragraph 4 of the 14thAmendment states, “The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.”

Of course the Dems imply that this means we have to borrow to pay all our intended spending!

But what it DOES mean is that it would be unconstitutional for us to not pay the interest on our debt, meaning that the interest would be paid FIRST! Therefore it would be impossible to default! What we would have is a shortfall of revenue to pay all those programs, departments, agencies and projects! Of course, that shortfall would be a Trillion dollars less if we simply rolled back our spending to 2006 levels! WHAT is it that Pelosi/Reid added to our spending that we can’t live without?

The Dems are once again invoking “sky is falling” scare tactics. Much like the rhetoric that resulted in passing a useless and expensive Bailout package back in 2008, and the Stimulus of 2009; the threats of imminent collapse without more borrowing are false. We will see a great stabilization of our economy if congress REFUSES to allow further borrowing and FORCES the government to live within its means. The draconian cuts necessary will NOT hurt the population, but will indeed help them by restoring confidence which will allow the economy to grow, produce jobs, produce taxpayers and increase revenues!

Despite the “MediScare” shrieks of the left… NO GOP PROPOSAL on the table diminishes benefits to current recipients of Medicare or Social Security! And none will affect the future benefits of those 55 and older today. But to NOT address the unsustainability of these programs will insure that a few years down the road there WILL be an insolvency which WILL affect benefits to recipients at that time! We must make the hard choices now to insure viability, or that whole house of cards is sure to collapse in on itself!

Still, the Dems focus on the "revenue" side of the equation. They want to raise taxes, specifically, they want to increase taxes on the rich!

Well, that’ll get some votes from the class warriors amongst their base, but the reality is that raising tax rates does not translate into increased revenues, and in fact, LOWERING tax rates has RAISED tax revenues every time it’s been tried!

Besides that, we simply cannot meet our deficit even if we were to confiscate every single dollar earned by every person earning over $200K annually! See my prior article on that subject: http://www.examiner.com/conservative-in-st-louis/the-uncomfortable-truth-we-can-t-soak-the-rich-enough Doing so would not only bankrupt the employers of this nation, creating more unemployed… but would generate only $1 Trillion in additional revenue (ignore the lost revenue from those consequentially unemployed!) while our deficit is 1.7 Trillion – leaving 700 Billion shortfall EVEN THEN!

No, the answer isn’t new taxes. It CERTAINLY isn’t new borrowing. ONLY massive cuts in spending will work! We can start by rolling back the massive spending increases of the Pelosi/Reid legacy

After enduring 3 weeks of Weinergate, which had America "twittering" over weiners... and perhaps redefined the term "twitterpated" - the creative juices of my warped sense of humor were flowing. Now that we've had the final Weenie-Roast (his resignation press conference), I thought I'd post this little bit of poetic justice! I hope you find it amusing!

Pundits, wonks, politicos and analysts will often toss around a lot of numerical data in making their points or providing their analysis… but they often cite the raw data without realizing that the vast bulk of their audience does not comprehend the numbers and their eyes glaze over! They’re just now starting to grasp the difference between millions and billions, and they haven’t yet inculcated the concept of a trillion into their collective consciousness!

As a public service, I will distill some of the current numerical dialogue into terms that the average citizen should be well able to comprehend and analyze its impact.

Let’s begin with the basics. A million is 1000 thousand. A million dollars will buy between 5 and 8 typical family homes. A million dollars represents about 20 years of earnings for the average family. A million dollars is 10,000 $100 bills. A million dollars will fit into a briefcase.

A billion is 1000 million. A billion dollars in $100 bills would take up 12 shipping pallets stacked 7 feet high. If we round off the population of the USA to 250 Million people, then you would have to take $4 from every man, woman and child to make one Billion dollars. Remember that fact as we will use it in our discussion.

A trillion is 1000 billion. That means a trillion is one million million. Imagine 12,000 shipping pallets stacked 7 feet high with $100 bills. Imagine a 200 car railroad train loaded to capacity with $100 bills! You’d have to take $4000 from every man, woman and child to make a trillion.

Remember, whenever government talks about a billion dollars, think $4 to you. When they talk about a trillion, think about $4000 of your own money.

So now, let’s do some analysis.

Remember Bush’s $87 billion request for the military to run 2 wars? The one Kerry voted for before voting against it? That would have cost you $348 (at $4 per billion as discussed above.)

How about the awful Bush deficits that made him the “worst president ever”?

The worst deficit that Bush had with a GOP congress was in 2003 after 9/11, 2 wars and the dot.com bubble burst. It was around $420 billion dollars. $1680 cost to you.

The 2003 tax cuts did what tax cuts always do, they increased revenues, and the deficit was reduced each of the following years so that by the time power shifted to the Pelosi/Reid congress in January 2007, the deficit had been reduced to under $120 Billion – or $360 to you.

How about the National Debt?

Bush took office with the National Debt of $4 trillion. That’s $16000 debt for you.

In his first 6 years, he added 2 Trillion to the national debt and was harshly and rightly criticized for increasing our debt by 50% in 6 years. This brought our debt to $6 trillion, or $24000 to you.

Pelosi and Reid took the reins of Congress. In 2 years the 110th congress added $3 trillion to the debt. That increased the debt by another 50% in just 2 years. That increased your share by another $12000. Bush took 6 years to add 2 trillion with a GOP congress, but with a Democrat congress they added 3 Trillion in 2 years.

Then we elected Barack Obama.

In the first 2 years of the Obama Administration, the Pelosi-Reid 111th congress added 5 TRILLION DOLLARS to the debt. They borrowed more in 2 years than ALL 42 presidents before Bush COMBINED! They increased the debt more in 2 years than was accumulated in the first 224 years of the United States!

That 5 Trillion increase brought our debt to 14 Trillion. That $56,000 of debt for every man, woman and child in the USA. If you thought things were bad in 2006 when we turned control over to the Democrats, realize that your share of the National debt has, in 4 short years, gone from $24000 to $56000! Is this helping you to put it all into perspective? Are you recognizing the impact that 4 years of Democrat dominance of Congress, and 2 years of a democrat congress and presidency has had on you personally?

Back to deficits for a moment.

Remember that Bush’s WORST deficit with a GOP congress was 420 billion, and that was reduced to $120 billion by the time Pelosi/Reid took power. In their first year at the helm of congress, they more than tripled the previous year’s deficit to $450 billion. That was the best they did in the 4 years they had both houses of congress. And it was 30 billion worse than Bush’s WORST deficit in his first 6 years!

But they were just getting started.

Remember that Bush’s $120 billion deficit in 2006 represented a cost to you of $360.

In their second year, Pelosi Reid tripled their first year’s deficit, and brought our deficit over the unheard of TRILLION dollar mark. The deficit that year was actually $1.2 Trillion, or $4800 to you. That’s right, in 2 years they brought your personal share of the deficit from $360 to $4800.

This year, the deficit is $1.7 Trillion, or $6800 to you. They are DEFICIT spending almost $7000 for every person in the country. That means that after they spend EVERY DOLLAR that they actually COLLECT in taxes, they keep spending, and borrowing at that level.

Now think back to the budget debate.

Our budget is around 3.5 Trillion a year ($14,000 for each of us). “Discretionary Spending” represents about $1.3 trillion. (That’s about $5200 to you). That includes our military, and the non-entitlement departments, agencies, bureaus and programs. The remainder (2.2 Trillion) represents our entitlement transfers of wealth, and interest on the debt. So the government spends $8800 a year for each one of us, taking from Peter who works, to pay Paul who doesn’t – and to pay the interest on financing the whole scheme!

And yet, the Senate Democrats can’t even agree to cut the 3.5 trillion dollar budget by $100 Billion. They couldn’t bring themselves to reduce your deficit share of $6800 by a lousy $400.

So, now when you hear democrats saying Bush and the GOP are worse than Obama and the Democrats, you can share this information! When they tell you our hardships today were inherited from Bush, you can share this information. And when the politicos and wonks throw numbers around, you can translate them into numbers that make sense! Just remember $4 per billion, $4000 per trillion.

Democrats in congress love to beat up on the oil companies: those “evil mega-corporations that make obscene profits and gouge us poor consumers.” But while that populist meme might gain them a few polling points with the assistance of a complicit press, any objective analyst of the facts will have to call BS on the entire premise.

Just where would we be, if the government succeeded in seriously putting the hurt on the world’s few companies capable of taking crude oil and delivering useful products to market?

Forget, for a moment, the energy resources coming from petroleum like gasoline, jet fuel, kerosene, home heating oil and the like. We are dependent upon petroleum for plastics, for medicines, for pesticides, for synthetic fibers necessary to clothe us. For asphalt necessary for roads and roofing. Look at what these demonized companies provide to us, on a slim margin of profit, as we’ll see.

The pain at the pump felt by Americans as gas prices hover around $4.00 a gallon is palpable. And as Rahm Emmanuel famously quipped, the left will “never let a good crisis go to waste”!

Politically, the left sees a golden opportunity: They can attack an “enemy of the common man”. They can (they think) raise tax revenues. They can further cripple the petroleum industry – providing impetus toward their “green economy”. They can attack corporate capitalism. So, of course, they go after the oil companies with great zeal.

But even Democrat Senator Mary Landrieu (a hard core leftist) recognizes that the attacks on the oil companies are both unfounded, and ill advised. Acknowledging that punitively terminating tax provisions (which are available to multiple industries and for good reason!) for the oil companies will not reduce (and might increase) gas prices at the pump, and will NOT increase revenues to the government, she spoke out on May 11, 2011 against the attempts to score political points by setting up the straw-man boogie-man of the “Evil Oil Companies” as an enemy to be taken down.

What REALLY is the cause of these high gas prices? Who’s REALLY to blame?

Well, let’s take a look at the factors influencing our pump price today.

First and foremost is the cost these companies must pay for crude! Raw Material Costs. Presently above $100 a barrel, these costs are bolstered by the weakness of the US Dollar – a function of the poor fiscal policy coming out of Obama’s Washington. A weak dollar means a dollar doesn’t go as far in purchasing commodities on the world market. We can only expect to see commodity prices (of EVERYTHING, not just oil!!!) to continue to climb unless drastic action is taken to stabilize the value of our money!

In addition, we are dependent on foreign (and not always friendly) sources of our oil. Leftist policies have hamstrung our domestic production. When the Department of Energy was created (ostensibly to REDUCE our dependence on foreign oil) our imports represented around 30% of our total petroleum consumption. Presently about 2/3 of all our oil is foreign sourced! (Good job, federal bureaucracy!)

All that oil we’re obtaining from foreign sources must be transported halfway around the globe (on very environmentally friendly tanker ships!). Those Shipping and Delivery Costs contribute to our gas price. Don’t forget, those ships run on DIESEL!! How many gallons do you think a tanker burns to bring a million barrels of oil across the ocean? (And what happens to the shipping costs as the price of Diesel rises?) Then, once offloaded in port, the oil must be transported via pipelines (which charge fees) to the refineries.

Our Refinery Costs are also factored into our gasoline pump prices. We haven’t built a new refinery since the Carter Administration… but we’ve lost a few in that time. Our refining capacity is not increasing to meet demand. Meantime our “helpful” federal government has mandated boutique fuel blends – different formulations engineered for different geographical regions. The refineries must make one blend for Missouri, and another for Illinois! These blends cannot be sold across the regional boundaries, so if there’s a shortage in Illinois for their blend, they can’t sell Missouri’s blend, even if there’s a surplus of that variety! So what happens? The price in IL must go up relative to the price in MO, as a function of its scarcity. And when IL residents note the difference, they cry GOUGING against IL gas retailers, who are innocent of any wrongdoing!

Speaking of the gasoline retailer, their average Retailer Profits are about 10 cents per gallon… unless you pay by credit card! Then the credit card company, which takes a fee based on the SALE PRICE will eat about 6 or 7 cents per gallon, leaving the station operator a mere 3 cents per gallon. This is why gas stations are now mini-markets. They need to sell higher margin items to stay alive! The gas is often a “loss leader” used simply to get motorists to stop and shop their convenience store!

Oil Company Profits must necessarily be figured into the cost equation… but let’s do so with perspective. Oil companies earn approximately 2 cents for every gallon sold! States place Taxes on Gasoline ranging from 30-something to 60-something cents per gallon, with the national average being 48 cents. So for every penny the oil companies earn, the states make almost a quarter. WHO’S reaping the windfall profits? The states invest nothing in exploration, extraction, transportation, formulation, refining, or delivery of gasoline, yet they make nearly a quarter for every penny the oil companies earn in profit!

But we’re not yet done with taxes! Once the states get their share, the feds also get a chunk. About 18 cents per gallon goes to the Federal Government. So about $.66 of every gallon you pump is simply paid to the state and federal government in taxes. Lay that against the lowly 2 cents profit per gallon that the oil companies get! If the profits of the oil companies are obscene, what about the Federal and State Governments appropriating 33 cents (and delivering NOTHING) for every cent the oil companies make in profit while delivering vital products to market?

But they sell billions of gallons! They earn BILLIONS in profit!

Ok… and so? That profit goes to their shareholders. When they make money, 9.2 million stockholders benefit!! Do you have a 401K or IRA or a pension? I’ll just bet you’re one of those evil oil profiteers!

And what of those billions? Oil companies operate on margins that would shut down most other industries. What business could survive with an effective tax rate of 48% and a profit margin under 7%?

According to ABC News (hardly a friend of the oil companies, and certainly not a conservative news outlet) the big oil companies had the following revenues/profits: Source: http://abcn.ws/jgMnP4

Company Revenues Profit Percent Profit

Exxon Mobil 284.7B 19.3B 6.8%

Chevron 163.5B 10.5B 6.4%

Connoco 139.5B 4.9B 2.8%

Valero Energy 70.0B 2.0B 2.8%

Marathon Oil 49.4B 1.5B 3.0%

The total profit for these 5 big oil companies was 38.2 Billion in 2010. (How fast does Government spend 38.2 billion?) Sounds like a lot, doesn’t it?

With approximately 250 million people in the USA, it takes $4 per person to make a billion dollars. So all 5 companies in total earned about $152.80 from each of us in 2010! Now think about what you SPENT on gasoline in 2010! Now realize that over $5000 was collected from each of us in gas TAXES by the states and the feds in that same time period. WHO are you mad at now?

Oh, and the Feds want to raise taxes on the oil companies. Where do you think that money will come from?

As an analyst of current events, I try to see things from unusual perspectives. To see what others might miss, or at least are not talking about. The recent takedown of Osama Bin Laden has provided more than ample material for such examination!

On the decision to send human assets rather than bombing the compound from 35,000 feet, the talk has all been about knowing of a certainty that we’d gotten OBL. But could there be another ulterior motive?

Has anyone drawn a connection to the Libyan conflict? Obama’s approval on Libya has been flagging. He’s been dithering on Khadafy. He doesn’t want him killed, but wants him to go… yet Khadafy’s been holding power and even making gains against the rebels. Having committed to supporting the rebellion in Libya, yet feeling the heat from the public for his decision to get involved, what is his most graceful way out of that morass? Wouldn’t the voluntary ceding of power by Khadafy fit the bill?

Khadafy is a blusterer and a terrorist, but he’s also a coward. When Reagan rang his bell with a few cruise missiles, he shut up for decades! Remember, when Saddam Hussein was fished out of his “spider hole”? Khadafy abandoned his nuclear program, welcomed inspector and regulators, and began providing us with intelligence! Khadafy DOES NOT WANT us painting a bull’s-eye on him!

Now, with our actions against him and our official position being in support of his ouster from power, Khadafy’s been defiant up to this point, believing Obama to be a weak and impotent wuss. And maybe, to this point, he’s been right!

The actions in Pakistan to take out Bin Laden MUST give Khadafy pause! We have the intelligence and technology to locate Bin Laden and put Seals on the ground. And Obama, to his credit, had the cojones to order the strike. Is it possible Khadafy might reconsider a “peaceful transfer of power” to avoid a similar fate? Might such an eventuality provide a bump in Obama’s approval rating – and could that have factored into his decision tree on utilizing Seal Team 6?

And what if it did? Would that be a case of narcissistic self-interest causing him to stumble into what could actually be a brilliant strategic move?

Moving on to the second item for discussion; Obama spent 4 days distracting the American public’s attention away from domestic policy issues while the release of photos of the corpse of Osama Bin Laden was debated. Ultimately, the decision was made to withhold the release of the photos, citing concerns that they would incite additional violence and put our troops at elevated risk.

Others are debating the merits of release or non-release of the photos. I’m looking at a different perspective: Obama’s ostensible concern for the risk to the troops!

If the troops are REALLY Obama’s first concern, then perhaps he should revisit the policies and the Rules of Engagement that his administration has implemented, which have resulted in the loss of more of our service men and women under his watch in 2 years, than under Bush’s watch in almost 8 years! Decisions made by the Commander-in-Chief in policy setting affect day-to-day operations, strategies and tactics, and ultimately the safety of every service member in theatre. Perhaps, if their welfare is his highest priority, as he states as his justification for not releasing the OBL photos, consistency would demand a review of the administration’s policies and procedures which have so notably degraded the safety of our military men and women since the changing of the guard in the White House!

Finally, the news of the killing of Bin Laden has knocked Donald Trump and the Birther issue off the front pages; but let us roll back the calendar a few days to when it was the big news. Obama had spent around 30 months and millions of dollars avoiding the release of his birth certificate. When the questions first arose, he could have simply produced the document and ended the controversy. Instead he fanned the smoldering coals into a flame! WHY?

I don’t intend to get into the validity or veracity of the document he released. There are those who will waste the next 2 years trying to prove it is fraudulent. There are those who will use it to ridicule the birthers. I’m looking for the perspective no one is talking about. If the document IS genuine, why would Obama have spent so much effort to keep it sealed?

Because it served his purposes to do so!

Fanning the controversy was a perfect distraction. For as long as “birthers” were a fringe element, he could use them to taint the Right as loonies. The Tea Party was dismissed at first as a bunch of racists and birthers! Over time, the doubters numbers began to grow. Obama’s stonewalling caused more mainstream people to question “Where’s the Long Form?” Even Chris “Tingles” Matthews questioned it!

Obama milked the controversy to the point where it reached the tipping point. Almost half the country questioned whether Obama was born in HI. His first term was half over and he’s in campaign mode. Could there be a better time to trot out a long form document, proclaiming him to have been born in Honolulu? The release accomplished several things for the President:

1) The majority of doubters will simply accept the document and be satisfied.
2) Trump is made to look foolish for making all that noise about it.
3) Those who question the document are marginalized and ridiculed.
4) Obama gets a big “I told you so… why didn’t you believe me in the first place?” gaining a “victory” heading into campaign season.
5) No one dares bring up his Indonesian citizenship or what passport he used to travel to Pakistan – which might have provided more effective questioning of his eligibility!

Whether the document is genuine and was always there, or was a fraudulent creation of the moment is not the topic of this article. Either way, releasing it at this particular juncture was brilliant. Obama was already cooking on the Bin Laden takedown, which would soon knock the Birth Certificate off the front page and out of people’s minds, with their last thought on the matter being that Obama had settled it. The issue is dead, and Obama won. Anyone attempting to resurrect the issue at this point looks foolish, and doing so will be a fruitless endeavor which will serve Obama’s interests by distracting some who could otherwise effectively battle his policies through the remainder of his term, and work to defeat him and his allies in 2012.

You will notice, this article offers little in the way of answers or conclusions. Its purpose was to raise awareness of fresh perspectives; a different way of looking at events. Events and life itself are 3-Dimensional. It is often interesting and frequently useful to go beyond the discussion of the obvious, and look at situations from angles other than head-on.

Our education system seems to have abandoned the purpose to encourage students to think, and to teach them how to do critical analysis. Instead of teaching HOW to think, they indoctrinate with WHAT to think. American Patriots must reawaken and cultivate the skill of critical analysis and outside-the-box thinking!

Donald Trump is nothing if he’s not a showman! The man knows how to get attention. He’s a self-promoter and loves the spotlight, and he’s certainly garnered a lot of that limelight of late!

He is riding a rising tide of popularity, and he’s milking it for all its worth. America is so very disenchanted with Obama that anyone who can land a body-blow on him is a hero. Trump has been relentless in his sometimes comical, sometimes clownish criticism and skepticism of the President. This makes him something of a folk-hero, whose stock has just posted great gains after Obama blinked on the Birth Certificate staredown. Now he is calling for school records. An amusing diversion, to be sure, and it may cause further deterioration of Obama’s credibility… but it’s not doing much to cause a rise in confidence in Trump’s ability to govern!

But if I might draw an analogy, Trump is an opening act. He warms up the audience for the headliner. Someone else will close the show and take the curtain calls.

Perhaps an even better analogy is that of a bullfight. Given the close association that so many people have between “bull” and Obama, this may perhaps be the most fitting analog I can find!

In a bullfight, there is not a single human opponent to the bull. There is a TEAM. The Picador will annoy the bull and will insert lances to weaken his back. This is the role I see The Donald playing. Frustrating the bull, causing him pain and injury, confusing him, and wearing him down.

During the next phase of the bullfight, a Torreador will play the bull. Goading him to charge at his red cape, while deftly avoiding the bulls horns, he further confuses and tires the bull. This is a finesse act. Perhaps too finesse for The Donald’s cavalier manner. I expect one or more challengers of the Paul Ryan, Mike Pence, even Ron Paul variety to challenge Obama on the REAL issues. To make him answer real and reasoned questions on fiscal matters, and on the differing world views and underlying philosophies that distinguish between the Progressive Left and the Conservative Right.
But the Matador… the one who ultimately plunges the sword into the bull and ends the bullfight in victory… that person has yet to emerge. This must be a charismatic person. One who can eloquently articulate the positions, policies, platform, and plan that will set our nation on a course for prosperity and success. One whose policies are not political gamesmanship, but which come from a core belief and a personal conviction. A Reaganesque character who will unite people behind an optimistic vision and a realistic plan.

This character profile does not fit Trump, and he won’t play that role in the end. Who will? It’s too early to tell! There are several I have my eyes on, and a few I truly hope will jump into the fray – but it’s far to early to make such a prediction or endorsement!

In the meantime, suffice it to say… I’m enjoying the opening act. But Trump will have to vacate the stage so the headliner can perform.

Since almost nobody watches Lawrence O’Donnell on MSNBC, it’s a pretty safe bet that you either haven’t seen his recent scriptural dissertation – or if you did, it was because someone shared it with you on Facebook!

As he disingenuously besmirches Limbaugh’s biblical expertise, and attempts to respond to Rush Limbaugh’s rhetorical musing, ‘What would Jesus take?’; O’Donnell postulates that Jesus would advocate taking it ALL. And uses the story of the widow’s mite as biblical justification for the progressive income tax!

Mark Twain once quipped, “It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt.”This saying was never more true than in the case of Lawrence O’Donnell’s biblical knowledge!

O’Donnell’s interpretive hypotheses are COMPLETELY without biblical justification!Talk about twisting scripture to support one’s preconceived notions!

O’Donnell postulates that the lesson of the widow’s mite in Mark 12 is that, because Jesus praised her giving all she had, while condemning the rich giving a mere token of their abundance, that Jesus would condone the Progressive Income Tax!!

Actually, I would be no less biblically inaccurate if I were to say his praise of the widow meant that he would condone raising taxes on the Poor!!

O’Donnell further referenced Matt 19:21 “Jesus answered, "If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."

Thus, in O’Donnell’s mind, Christ wants those who have means to give it ALL to help the poor.

Well, gee whiz!He quoted 2 scriptures and it sure sounds that way, don’t it?(To O’Donnell’s audience, likely people as biblically ignorant as O’Donnell himself, it probably does!!)But when the Sword of the Spirit is wielded by one unskilled in swordsmanship, there is much danger to any nearby!

Pulling scriptures out of context can be a very dangerous practice, Mr. O’Donnell!Let me demonstrate:

First verse:"Then he threw down the pieces of silver in the temple and departed, and went and hanged himself" (Matthew 27:5).

41 Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. 42 But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a few cents.

43 Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. 44 They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything—all she had to live on.”

First, a little historical perspective.Israel was a theocracy.The nation was ruled by the priesthood.The Temple was the Government.

“AHA!!!” I hear the MSNBC zombies saying!!All those verses about giving can be appropriated by Government!

Well, NO!See, scriptures speak of both TITHES, and OFFERINGS.

The TITHE was the “temple tax”.It was the amount each person was to give for the support of the priesthood – the upkeep of the government.

One of the most commonly cited verses regarding giving that you’ll hear in churches isMal 3:10

“Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this," says the LORD Almighty, "and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.”

Interestingly, it was FOOD and not Money, and it was a TITHE… one tenth!The “income tax” set by biblical law was 10%, and it was NOT progressive!The rich were assessed 10% of their abundance and the poor 10% of their meager existence!(Our lowest rate income tax today is 15%!GOD only required 10%!)

Further, the OFFERINGS, which were indeed money, went into the treasury of the temple for the work of the ministry. These were FREE WILL OFFERINGS.Voluntary giving.Jesus referred to this giving when he said, “Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.” 2COR 9:7

So the offerings were to be voluntary, (not under compulsion), and the amount was to be determined by the individual’s own conscience and purpose.God preferred less given cheerfully over more given reluctantly!

Let’s go back to Matt 19:21 “Jesus answered, "If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."

Sure, he said “sell your possessions and give to the poor”.But look at the context!

16 Just then a man came up to Jesus and asked, “Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?”

SUBJECT:ETERNAL LIFE.A SPIRITUAL issue.

17 “Why do you ask me about what is good?” Jesus replied. “There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, keep the commandments.”

18 “Which ones?” he inquired.

Jesus replied, “‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, 19 honor your father and mother,’[c] and ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’[d]”

20 “All these I have kept,” the young man said. “What do I still lack?”

Jesus here was setting up the great premise of the Christian Salvation.The LAW sets the standard of perfection which all men fall short of. (“For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.”Rom 3:23)It is this realization that no man can earn or deserve eternal life through their own works that leads man to accept Christ’s substitutionary atonement.8 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9not by works, so that no one can boast.” Eph 2:8,9

The man did not come to this realization.He relied on his own self-righteous works.He was deluded into thinking he had not failed in his perfect keeping of the law!

21 Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”

22 When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth.

O’Donnell and his ilk seize upon the “give to the poor”, but they ignore not only the spiritual context of the passage, but the remainder of this very verse!“THEN COME FOLLOW ME!”Christ was telling the man that the works of his own self-efforts, of his self-righteousness, were inadequate.He told him to abandon what he valued, and turn to what GOD valued.He was unwilling.

As a final admonition to our friend Lawrence O’Donnell, I would warn him away from advocating for the position held by Judas Iscariot in John 12!

1 Six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus lived, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. 2 Here a dinner was given in Jesus’ honor. Martha served, while Lazarus was among those reclining at the table with him. 3 Then Mary took about a pint[a] of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.

4 But one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was later to betray him, objected, 5“Why wasn’t this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year’s wages.[b]” 6He did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it.

7 “Leave her alone,” Jesus replied. “It was intended that she should save this perfume for the day of my burial. 8You will always have the poor among you,[c] but you will not always have me.”

Last November, by the slimmest of margins, Missouri voters passed Proposition B; an initiative petition ballot measure sponsored by the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS).Deceptively sold as the Puppy Mill Cruelty Prevention Act, Prop B would impose unsustainable restrictions on breeders… but more importantly, contained language which could be used to restrict and hamper agricultural husbandry of most ANY domesticated animal… which is consistent with HSUS honcho Wayne Pacelle’s public statements of his agenda to END domestication of animals.

Of course, the legislation only applies to LICENSED breeders, who are already required to remain compliant with current (and adequate) animal protective law in order to maintain their license.The proposition proposed to define any breeding facility with 50 or more intact dogs as a “puppy mill” regardless of the level of care provided… and the legislation did nothing to improve or enhance the enforcement of current law against unlicensed and illegal breeding facilities which were, in fact, the abusers of animals the promoters of the legislation pretended to address!

HSUS is NOT your local Humane Society Pet Shelter.In fact, less than 1% of their MASSIVE budget is given to support shelters or any other direct care of animals.HSUS is an Animal Rights Activist organization, established as a tax exempt nonprofit, but whose activities are primarily targeted toward lobbying for legislation to hamper, restrict or eliminate any activity involving man keeping domesticated animals, whether chickens, pigs, cattle or dogs and cats. (Tax Exempt nonprofits CANNOT lobby legally, and keep their tax exempt status!)

HSUS is at least as radical as PETA, except that they don’t protest in the nude or throw red paint… and they ARE more effective as they use the initiative petition process and misleading ballot language and deceptive advertising to create legislation advancing their agenda.

A month before the election, the proposition was leading in the polls by a wide margin, but as more Missourians became aware of the true meaning and effects of the proposed legislation, and of the mindset, agenda, and intents of the authors and promoters, the tide turned.Had the election been held mere weeks later, the measure would have failed!

Once the proposition passed, more and more information came to light which caused the necessity to modify the proposition before it could become legally and constitutionally enforceable law.There were provisions of the proposition which would not withstand legal muster.

Given the need to make adjustments, Prop B opponents joined forces with a number of sympathetic lawmakers to make changes to Prop B to make it less egregious .These changes enjoyed enough support in the legislature to pass the legislation and send it to Governor Nixon for signature.

As the Wayne Pacelle’s Humane Society of the United States and Barbara Schmitz’ Missourians for the Protection of Dogs (a local HSUS clone group set up to oversee the campaign for Prop B) began to recognize that Missouri was not going to simply cowtow to them and implement their whims as law… they went into full frenzy mode.The airwaves rang with advertisements accusing Missouri Lawmakers of “disregarding the will of the people” and “repealing” Prop B’s requirement to provide adequate food and clean water!!

“Prop B would require that dogs have continuous access to water; SB 113 removes that provision and replaces it with current law. Prop B mandates an annual visit by a veterinarian to every puppy mill and requires that the veterinarian actually examine each dog; SB 113 removes the requirement that each dog be inspected.”

Well, at least here Pacelle is more honest than the radio ad by Missourians for the Protection of Dogs which claims that SB 113 “Repeals the requirementto provide clean water” without the statement that it replaces it with CURRENT LAW.

The fact is that current law already requires adequate provision of clean food and water!!The Animal Care Facilities Act of 1992 (ACFA) requires adequate food and water be provided.

Adequate water means the provision of a supply of potable water in a safe receptacle, dish or container. Water shall be provided continuously or as often as necessary to ensure the animal’s health and wellbeing, but not less than once each eight (8) hours for at least one (1) hour each time, unless restricted by the attending veterinarian. Water receptacles must be kept clean and sanitized in accordance with this rule and before being used to water a different animal or social grouping of animals.

“Adequate food” means the provision of wholesome food at suitable intervals of not more than twelve (12) hours. Animals must be fed at least once each twelve (12) hours, unless the dietary requirements of the species require a longer interval and except as otherwise might be required to provide adequate veterinary care. The food must be uncontaminated, wholesome, palatable and of sufficient quantity and nutritive value to maintain the normal condition and weight of the animal. The diet must be appropriate for the individual animal’s age and condition. Food

receptacles used for animals must be readily accessible to all animals and must be located so as to minimize contamination by excreta and pests and be protected from rain and snow. Feeding pans must be safe and either be made of a durable material that can be easily cleaned and sanitized or disposable. If the food receptacles are not disposable, they must be kept clean and must be sanitized in accordance with this rule. If the food receptacles are disposable, they must be discarded after one (1) use. Measures must be taken to ensure that there is no molding, deterioration or caking of feed.

Prop B outlaws the use of stacked cages and painful wire flooring for dogs, sets parameters for the temperatures to which dogs can be exposed, sets humane enclosure standards and uniform standards for outdoor access, limits breeding frequency, and limits the number of reproductively intact dogs used for breeding in these mills. SB 113 removes all of these provisions from Prop B, and reverts back to existing law — the same law that allowed for the cruel and inhumane treatment of dogs.

Again, the provision of Prop B is being set aside in favor of current law.So let’s look at both.

Prop B:

“Sufficient housing, including protection from the elements” means constant and unfettered access to an indoor enclosure that has a solid floor; is not stacked or otherwise placed on top of or below another animal’s enclosure; is cleaned of waste at least once a day while the dog is outside the enclosure; and does not fall below 45 degrees Fahrenheit, or rise about 85 degrees Fahrenheit.

Ok, every enclosure must be ground level – unstacked.What’s wrong with a 2nd level?And it requires a SOLID floor.So a dog would have to share his enclosure with his own urine and feces till it was hosed down?Current law allows for a wire floor that these wastes can fall thru into a collection pan!

Current law (ACFA):

Housing facilities MUST at all times:

• be structurally sound and kept in good repair with no sharp edges;

• protect the animals from injury, enable them to remain dry and clean;

• contain the animals securely and restrict other animals from entering;

• enable all surfaces that are in contact with the animals to be readily cleaned daily and

sanitized or replaced when worn or soiled;

• during cleaning, animals must be removed unless the enclosure is large enough to ensure

the animals would not be harmed, wetted, or distressed in the process; animals nearby

must be protected during the cleaning.

• have floors that are constructed in a manner that protects the animals’ feet and legs from

injury, strong enough not to sag, and contain solid resting surface(s) large enough to

comfortably hold all occupants of the enclosure;

• be sufficiently heated and cooled to protect the animals at all times from temperature

extremes and to provide for their health and well-being (temperature cannot fall below 50

degrees Fahrenheit for animals not acclimated to colder temperatures, or rise above 85

degrees Fahrenheit);

• Be sufficiently ventilated to provide for the animals’ health and well-being and to

minimize odors, drafts, ammonia levels, and moisture condensation;

• have surfaces that are impervious to moisture;

• have sufficient lighting and provide a regular diurnal lighting cycle and protect the animals

from excessive light;

• have properly equipped and maintained drainage and waste disposal systems in order

to minimize contamination, disease, odors, pest infestation and to keep the animals dry;

• have washrooms and sinks

• have fire detection and fire extinguishers

So, which of these do YOU think better outlines proper care of dogs?Can you see how misleading Pacelle’s statements are? He implies that modifying HIS proposal (composed and designed to advance the HSUS agenda) would somehow leave breeding dogs and puppies UNPROTECTED against these unscrupulous and unrestricted licensed breeders!!Yet it is not unlicensed breeders who abuse dogs in the first place!Licensed breeders must comply with current law, which, as you see, DOES provide for adequate care!And as I said, Prop B does not address the unlicensed illegal breeders who DO keep breeding stock and puppies in deplorable conditions!

So there are two things at work. First, lawmakers are seeking to undo a voter-approved law, just a few months after it was passed and before it’s even taken effect (that will be in November 2011).

And second, they are lying to the people about their shenanigans in Jefferson City, hoping to confuse them with the language of “fix.” SB 113 “fixes” nothing. It’s wholesale repeal.

If lawmakers were seeking to “undo” Prop B, they would REPEAL it outright.There were problems with the proposal as written which would make it un-enactable in the first place!It MUST be fixed.But remember, Prop B didn’tmake ANY improvements to the required care of the animals over current law!! But it DID establish a limits and requirements on breeders which would make the practice economically unsustainable!And it created a pathway by which to restrict agricultural husbandry of other animals.

Prop B was a response to the inaction of Missouri lawmakers in the first place. For nearly two decades, the breeding industry and its apologists failed to convince citizens that all was well. Instead, the problems of puppy mills grew and went unanswered. Then the voters stepped in.

If there was inaction, it was on the part of Missouri Law Enforcement against the ILLEGAL, UNLICENSED breeders who operated TRUE puppy mills.As we’ve shown, the laws in existence since 1992 were quite adequate!But the target of Prop B was licensed, law abiding and ethical breeders.HSUS stepped in.HSUS doesn’t have any love or fondness for the dogs (perhaps evidenced by HSUS failure to provide even 1% of their humongous budget to actual animal care or support of shelters who provide care!)HSUS wants to END dog breeding!Wayne Pacelle has SAID SO!

“I don’t have a hands-on fondness for animals… To this day I don’t feel bonded to any non-human animal.I like them and I pet them and I’m kind to them, but there’s no special bond between me and other animals.” – Wayne Pacelle quoted in Bloodties: Nature, Culture and the Hunt by Ted Kerasote, 1993, p.251.

When asked if he envisioned a future without pets, “If I had my personal view, perhaps that might take hold.In fact, I don’t want to see another dog or cat born.”– Wayne Pacelle quoted in Bloodties: Nature, Culture and the Hunt by Ted Kerasote, 1993, p266.

With misleading ballot language written by the complicit Secretary of State, Robin Carnahan, Missouri voters were duped.And in large measure, they are now aware of it and resent it… and are DEMANDING the Missouri Legislature take action to fix Prop B.

President Obama’s budget speech of April 13 may well go down in history as one of the worst Presidential speeches ever broadcast. But it still bears analysis and commentary! While Vice President Biden was sleeping through it, I was taking notes – so here goes. We’ll take Mr. Obama’s most salient statements, and lay them against a plumb line of reality. This may be a lengthy piece – but there is quite a lot to examine!

This debate over budgets and deficits is about more than just numbers on a page, more than just cutting and spending. It’s about the kind of future we want. It’s about the kind of country we believe in.<p>
Precisely. This is a battle vision and philosophy. The Big Government, Wealth Redistributing, Nanny State Leftists versus the Self Reliance, Personal Responsibility, Free Market Right.

From our first days as a nation, we have put our faith in free markets and free enterprise as the engine of America’s wealth and prosperity. More than citizens of any other country, we are rugged individualists, a self-reliant people with a healthy skepticism of too much government.

Obama throws a bone to the majority of America! Unfortunately he and the left don’t BELIEVE it, as we’ll see in the rest of the President’s remarks!

Part of this American belief that we are all connected also expresses itself in a conviction that each one of us deserves some basic measure of security. We recognize that no matter how responsibly we live our lives, hard times or bad luck, a crippling illness or a layoff, may strike any one of us. “There but for the grace of God go I,” we say to ourselves, and so we contribute to programs like Medicare and Social Security, which guarantee us health care and a measure of basic income after a lifetime of hard work; unemployment insurance, which protects us against unexpected job loss; and Medicaid, which provides care for millions of seniors in nursing homes, poor children, and those with disabilities. We are a better country because of these commitments. I’ll go further – we would not be a great country without those commitments.

So, let’s understand: We DESERVE security at the hand and responsibility of the FEDERAL Government? Do we all deserve compassion? Certainly. Charity? Of course. FAMILY responsibility? Resoundingly, yes. Perhaps even state governments can constitutionally choose to involve themselves in such services. But the enumerated powers granted the Federal Government under our Constitution provide no authority, much less a mandate for any such programs! And Obama thinks that we WOULD NOT BE A GREAT COUNTRY without entitlements? Does he believe we sucked before FDR?

For much of the last century, our nation found a way to afford these investments and priorities with the taxes paid by its citizens. As a country that values fairness, wealthier individuals have traditionally born a greater share of this burden than the middle class or those less fortunate. This is not because we begrudge those who’ve done well – we rightly celebrate their success. Rather, it is a basic reflection of our belief that those who have benefitted most from our way of life can afford to give a bit more back. Moreover, this belief has not hindered the success of those at the top of the income scale, who continue to do better and better with each passing year.

Books could be written on this paragraph alone! But I’ll try to be brief. Half the people in this country pay NO Federal Income Tax at all! They are the ones who benefit from this “way of life”. The rich have striven for, worked for, risked for and EARNED their success, only to have it APPROPRIATED for redistribution to those who have not done so! Many of these “beneficiaries” have their homes, heat, food, daycare and many other expenses paid for, and have nicer cars, televisions, cell phones and clothes than many who work hard for their sustenance! Perhaps the “beneficiaries” who now live on Government Largesse at no expense to them should pay THEIR fair share!

The so called wealthy already pay far more than the lion’s share of taxes. They already see half or more of what they work for taken in Federal, State and other taxes. At what point does confiscation of wealth become UN-fair? The American Dream is that ANYONE has the opportunity to work hard and become successful. But if you attain that success you become the enemy and your wealth must be confiscated for redistribution to those who did not take the initiative to utilize their opportunities that you did? If you ATTAIN the American Dream, do you then deserve to have it TAKEN from you?

Now, at certain times – particularly during periods of war or recession – our nation has had to borrow money to pay for some of our priorities. And as most families understand, a little credit card debt isn’t going to hurt if it’s temporary.

TEMPORARY? Our nation has lived on the credit card as a major part of our budget for generations! This isn’t new, and it’s never been “temporary!

But as far back as the 1980s, America started amassing debt at more alarming levels, and our leaders began to realize that a larger challenge was on the horizon. They knew that eventually, the Baby Boom generation would retire, which meant a much bigger portion of our citizens would be relying on programs like Medicare, Social Security, and possibly Medicaid.

The “1980s” and “amassing debt” comment is an implied dig at Reagan. Reagan cut taxes, and was blamed for increasing the deficit. Yet the reality is that Reagan’s tax cuts DOUBLED revenues. It was the Democrat Congress, led by Tip O’Neal, (who declared Reagan’s reasonable budgets “dead on arrival”), which increased spending by $1.84 for every dollar in tax-cut generated new revenue!

Yes, the Dems DID see the age-wave of the Baby Boomers coming… and welcomed it as a voter boom! As they aged, they’d become more dependent on Government! The ideal situation for the party of the nanny state!

To meet this challenge, our leaders came together three times during the 1990s to reduce our nation’s deficit. They forged historic agreements that required tough decisions made by the first President Bush and President Clinton; by Democratic Congresses and a Republican Congress. All three agreements asked for shared responsibility and shared sacrifice, but they largely protected the middle class, our commitments to seniors, and key investments in our future.

As a result of these bipartisan efforts, America’s finances were in great shape by the year 2000. We went from deficit to surplus. America was actually on track to becoming completely debt-free, and we were prepared for the retirement of the Baby Boomers.

This is almost laughable!

Prior to the Gingrich revolution of 1994, the Democrats had a death-grip on Congress, where budgets/spending take place! Interestingly, starting in 1994, we saw deficit reduction fiscal responsibility under the GOP majority that lead to a couple years of actual SURPLUSSES which, of course, Bill Clinton took credit for, though he was dragged kicking and screaming by the GOP Congress to budgets of austerity! And now Obama’s claiming it to have been a BI-PARTISAN effort!

But after Democrats and Republicans committed to fiscal discipline during the 1990s, we lost our way in the decade that followed. We increased spending dramatically for two wars and an expensive prescription drug program – but we didn’t pay for any of this new spending.

It wasn’t until the perfect storm of the dot-bomb, 9/11, and the prosecution of 2 wars that we had to pick up that credit card again! Bush’s worst deficit (and the worst deficit in history to that point) was in 2003, at 420 Billion (a mere PITTANCE by today’s standards!).

The “dramatic increase” for 2 wars: Remember the $87 Billion that Kerry voted for before voting against? We ran 2 wars for a year on $87 Billion. Remember the $787 Billion Bailout? That was 9 times bigger!!

The Bush Tax Cuts (that Obama wants to roll back, as we’ll discuss later) did what tax cuts ALWAYS do… they raised revenues! Our deficit declined in EACH of the following 3 years, so that when the power shifted back to the Democrats in 2006, the deficit had been reduced to a mere 120 Billion. The Bush tax cuts REDUCED the deficit by 300 Billion in 3 years – or about 100 Billion a year!

Bush took office with our national debt at 4 Trillion. He and the GOP Congress were deservedly criticized for increasing that by 50% to 6 Trillion in the first 6 years of the Bush Administration. Bush raised the debt by 2 Trillion in 6 years, and was “rewarded” with the return of power to the Democrats and Pelosi and Reid took the helm of Congress.

Unfortunately, as bad as Bush’s fiscal leadership had been… it was exponentially better than what followed. In their first year, Pelosi/Reid tripled the previous year’s 120 Billion dollar deficit to 450 Billion – 30 Billion worse than Bush’s WORST deficit in 2003! But the following year, they tripled THAT to 1.2 TRILLION! Pelosi and Reid started their tenure in charge with a 120 Billion dollar deficit and 6 Trillion in debt. In merely 4 years they increased the deficit EXPONENTIALLY, to 1.6 Trillion (1600 Billion) and they raised our debt by 2 1/3 times to 14 Trillion! It took 43 Presidents and 230 years to amass a 6 Trillion dollar debt… and these clowns added 8 Trillion to it in 4 years!

Instead, we made the problem worse with trillions of dollars in unpaid-for tax cuts – tax cuts that went to every millionaire and billionaire in the country; tax cuts that will force us to borrow an average of $500 billion every year over the next decade.
To give you an idea of how much damage this caused to our national checkbook, consider this: in the last decade, if we had simply found a way to pay for the tax cuts and the prescription drug benefit, our deficit would currently be at low historical levels in the coming years.

So that’s how our fiscal challenge was created. This is how we got here. And now that our economic recovery is gaining strength, Democrats and Republicans must come together and restore the fiscal responsibility that served us so well in the 1990s. We have to live within our means, reduce our deficit, and get back on a path that will allow us to pay down our debt. And we have to do it in a way that protects the recovery, and protects the investments we need to grow, create jobs, and win the future.

WOW! There’s a mouthful! Most of it false!

First, he’s still playing to that economic myth that the left strives so hard to promote: The “Tax Rates are Directly Proportional to Revenues” myth. This theory has been disproven every time Tax Cuts have been tried! Revenues INCREASE when tax rates are reduced. Kennedy proved it. Reagan proved it. Bush proved it. So if revenues go UP when tax rates go DOWN, then rates and revenues are NOT directly proportional and tax rate adjustments have BEHAVIORAL effects on the public which can cause DYNAMIC expansion and contraction of the economy.

This brings us to the second sacred myth of the Left: The “Zero Sum Game” theory of the Economy. Under this theory, the economy is a fixed size and there is only so much sand in the sandbox. Piling up too much in one corner deprives the rest of the sandbox. If someone is too successful and amasses too much wealth, someone else somewhere is denied the opportunity to have enough. This is the very FOUNDATIONAL truth of class warfare! If you make the rich poorer, axiomatically you improve the lot of everyone else, as if by magic!! But the economy is not static. It dynamically expands and contracts with the behavior of the producers. Wealth is created every time a new idea comes to market! Every time a business grows and adds workers. It contracts when the producers feel the need to protect their assets and minimize risk. An adversarial relationship between Government and the producers in this country and anti-business tax and regulatory policies drive the producers into a defensive posture, contracting the economy and reducing tax revenues. Raise rates on business, and you’ll net LESS revenue.

Now, before I get into how we can achieve this goal, some of you might be wondering, “Why is this so important? Why does this matter to me?”
By the end of this decade, the interest we owe on our debt could rise to nearly $1 trillion. Just the interest payments.<p>
Just to remind you: 2006 debt, 6 Trillion. After 4 years of Pelosi/Reid, debt is 14 Trillion.

Then, as the Baby Boomers start to retire and health care costs continue to rise, the situation will get even worse. By 2025, the amount of taxes we currently pay will only be enough to finance our health care programs, Social Security, and the interest we owe on our debt. That’s it. Every other national priority – education, transportation, even national security – will have to be paid for with borrowed money.

In other words, the government made promises it can’t keep! The nanny-state Socialists are running out of other people’s money! Obama talked about 2525 – far enough away that folks will dismiss it as “the future”… but the fact is that TODAY our discretionary spending IN TOTAL is 1.3 Trillion while our deficit is 1.6 Trillion. If we funded ONLY Entitlements and interest on the debt, we’d be 300 billion short!! We’re ALREADY paying for 1/3 of our budget with borrowed money… and 2/3 of our budget is entitlements and interest on the debt! In fact he admits it below, though with obfuscation:

So here’s the truth. Around two-thirds of our budget is spent on Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and national security. Programs like unemployment insurance, student loans, veterans’ benefits, and tax credits for working families take up another 20%. What’s left, after interest on the debt, is just 12 percent for everything else. That’s 12 percent for all of our other national priorities like education and clean energy; medical research and transportation; food safety and keeping our air and water clean.

Note that he included National Security (Discretionary) in with Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security (so-called Mandatory entitlement spending), and he separated interest on the debt (mandatory) out. Let’s look at ALL mandatory spending as distinct from Discretionary: In 2010, Medicare (519 Billion), Medicaid (273 Billion) and Social Security (701 Billion) totaled 1.493 Trillion out of a 3.5 Trillion dollar budget. That’s 1/3 of the budget by itself. Add in Interest on the debt (202 Billion) and “Other Mandatory” spending like welfare and food stamps (433 Billion) and you’re up to 2.128 Trillion out of 3.5 Trillion!

Up until now, the cuts proposed by a lot of folks in Washington have focused almost exclusively on that 12%. But cuts to that 12% alone won’t solve the problem. So any serious plan to tackle our deficit will require us to put everything on the table, and take on excess spending wherever it exists in the budget.

Our Defense budget (692 Billion) and all the rest of our Discretionary budget (666 Billion) totals 1.358 Trillion. Less than 1/3 of the entire budget… and non-Defense Discretionary spending isn’t 12% it’s 19%, but that still means that less than 1 out of every 5 dollars we spend is non-Defense Discretionary spending.

One vision has been championed by Republicans in the House of Representatives and embraced by several of their party’s presidential candidates. It’s a plan that aims to reduce our deficit by $4 trillion over the next ten years, and one that addresses the challenge of Medicare and Medicaid in the years after that.
Those are both worthy goals for us to achieve. But the way this plan achieves those goals would lead to a fundamentally different America than the one we’ve known throughout most of our history.

A 70% cut to clean energy. A 25% cut in education. A 30% cut in transportation. Cuts in college Pell Grants that will grow to more than $1,000 per year. That’s what they’re proposing. These aren’t the kind of cuts you make when you’re trying to get rid of some waste or find extra savings in the budget. These aren’t the kind of cuts that Republicans and Democrats on the Fiscal Commission proposed. These are the kind of cuts that tell us we can’t afford the America we believe in. And they paint a vision of our future that’s deeply pessimistic.

Actually, Mr. President, the Ryan Plan’s vision is one that begins to move on the path not only to prosperity and sustainability… but to constitutionality!! There is no constitutional authority nor mandate for ANY of the so-called Mandatory Budget… outside of interest on the debt that was unconstitutionally amassed! And within the Discretionary budget are many Departments, Agencies and Programs which have no constitutional justification for their existence as well! We could EASILY afford to fund a government which was LIMITED by the constitutional limitations they have ignored!

It’s a vision that says if our roads crumble and our bridges collapse, we can’t afford to fix them.

Actually, Sir, infrastructure IS one of the expenses AUTHORIZED under the Constitution’s enumerated powers!

It’s a vision that says America can’t afford to keep the promise we’ve made to care for our seniors.

We CAN’T! Our entitlement system is a Ponzi Scheme. A pyramid where those at the bottom pay for those at the top! The problem is that it’s an inverted pyramid and there are more dependents than the producers can support, and the demographics are shifting to INCREASE that problem!

Worst of all, this is a vision that says even though America can’t afford to invest in education or clean energy; even though we can’t afford to care for seniors and poor children, we can somehow afford more than $1 trillion in new tax breaks for the wealthy...

…There’s nothing serious about a plan that claims to reduce the deficit by spending a trillion dollars on tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires. There’s nothing courageous about asking for sacrifice from those who can least afford it and don’t have any clout on Capitol Hill. And this is not a vision of the America I know.

“…More than $1 trillion in new tax breaks for the wealthy”??? WHAT new tax breaks? We have passed no new tax cuts – we PREVENTED the automatic INCREASE to rates that have been in effect for nearly a decade! No one is even TALKING about further rate reductions! So what’s he talking about? He views NOT making those increases in tax rates as a NEW CUT!

And how does he put a dollar amount of a trillion dollars on these failed tax rate increases? As we showed earlier, raising tax RATES is not directly proportionate to revenues. If he wants to increase revenues he should consider a further REDUCTION in rates which would spur economic growth and generate new business expansion, more jobs, more workers earning more taxable income etc.

No, the tax rate debate is not about revenue, or deficits, or budgets. It’s about wealth redistribution and that 2nd economic myth. The Zero Sum Game theory implies that if you make the rich poorer, you magically make the poor richer!! It’s a fallacy… but the left BELIEVES it and promotes it!

Today, I’m proposing a more balanced approach to achieve $4 trillion in deficit reduction over twelve years… The first step in our approach is to keep annual domestic spending low by building on the savings that both parties agreed to last week… But as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Admiral Mullen, has said, the greatest long-term threat to America’s national security is America’s debt... Just as we must find more savings in domestic programs, we must do the same in defense... The third step in our approach is to further reduce health care spending in our budget. Here, the difference with the House Republican plan could not be clearer: their plan lowers the government’s health care bills by asking seniors and poor families to pay them instead. Our approach lowers the government’s health care bills by reducing the cost of health care itself...That includes, by the way, our commitment to Social Security. While Social Security is not the cause of our deficit, it faces real long-term challenges in a country that is growing older. As I said in the State of the Union, both parties should work together now to strengthen Social Security for future generations. But we must do it without putting at risk current retirees, the most vulnerable, or people with disabilities; without slashing benefits for future generations; and without subjecting Americans’ guaranteed retirement income to the whims of the stock market.

While I won’t state the Defense Budget is an untouchable sacred cow… Democrats have historically been eager to cut the lean with the fat. If we eliminate fraud, waste and abuse in the Defense budget, and cut wasteful or ineffective programs while BOLSTERING spending on modernization, research & development of new weapons systems and recruitment, retention, training, equipping and PROVIDING FOR our military personnel… then Military spending is fair game to be on the table… but don’t expect huge savings if these things are properly approached!

ObamaCare is a fiscal boondoggle and everyone knows it. The left can put all the whitewash they want on it, but even the CBO has continued to issue report after report… each worse than the one before it… declaring Obamacare as a money-sucking black hole that will not improve care, access or costs! Yet Obama is determined to preserve it, though the Supreme Court will ultimately find it unconstitutional as 2 lower courts have. Meantime businesses must make the expenditures to gear up for implementation that may or may not be funded, and may or may not be dismantled ultimately by SCOTUS. This uncertainty is bad for the economy – and recovery could be accelerated by simply abandoning and repealing ObamaCare utterly, as though it never occurred!

Social Security is about to go bankrupt. The President is correct in saying Social Security is not the cause of the deficit… but the decision under Democrat Administrations to eliminate the “trust fund” and “lock box” aspects keeping Social Security separate from the general fund of the US treasury IS a cause. Social Security might have remained solvent if it were not raided by prior administrations to fund their pet vote buying schemes!

The fourth step in our approach is to reduce spending in the tax code. In December, I agreed to extend the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans because it was the only way I could prevent a tax hike on middle-class Americans. But we cannot afford $1 trillion worth of tax cuts for every millionaire and billionaire in our society. And I refuse to renew them again.

Beyond that, the tax code is also loaded up with spending on things like itemized deductions. And while I agree with the goals of many of these deductions, like homeownership or charitable giving, we cannot ignore the fact that they provide millionaires an average tax break of $75,000 while doing nothing for the typical middle-class family that doesn’t itemize.

This is the most egregious Orwellian NewSpeak in the entire speech. SPENDING IN THE TAX CODE? Let’s see… So ALL our money is the Governments, and anything we’re allowed to KEEP is a Government EXPENDITURE???

Obama views itemized deductions… in other words, DOING those things that are deductible from ones tax obligations like paying home mortgage interest or making charitable contributions, is like sending the government a bill for payment? We know that leftists don’t like private charity. It is a competitor for Government Programs that buy votes! Why have a church food pantry when the government can give food stamps? And subsidizing private home ownership? Personal Property Rights? Another of our rights under assault by the left!

And what about that “$75,000 tax break” that millionaires get while the typical middle class family doesn’t get because they don’t itemize? If someone’s a millionaire, then with only ONE million that average $75,000 tax break represents only 7.5%! If they’re RICHER than that $75,000 represents an even lower percentage!

The STANDARD DEDUCTION for a typical family is over 11,000 so if you earn less than 110,000 and don’t itemize that deduction represents more than 10%, and the less you earn, the higher that percentage!

Of course, there will be those who disagree with my approach. Some will argue we shouldn’t even consider raising taxes, even if only on the wealthiest Americans. It’s just an article of faith for them.

Exactly right. Americans are NOT under taxed. Congress over spends. As I outlined in my recent article: http://www.examiner.com/conservative-in-st-louis/after-the-shutdown-showdown-reality-still-bites, “…the revenue side of the equation is simply not an option.”

Others will say that we shouldn’t even talk about cutting spending until the economy is fully recovered. I’m sympathetic to this view, which is one of the reasons I supported the payroll tax cuts we passed in December. It’s also why we have to use a scalpel and not a machete to reduce the deficit – so that we can keep making the investments that create jobs. But doing nothing on the deficit is just not an option. Our debt has grown so large that we could do real damage to the economy if we don’t begin a process now to get our fiscal house in order.

Obama is talking to the true Keynesians in his own party here. They TRULY BELIEVE that they can spend their way out of debt… as counter intuitive as that sounds (and as false as it IS!). Obama has come to realize that, while he’s “sympathetic to this view”… that is, he, too, is a Keynesian at heart – but he recognizes that to hold firm to the theory would now be political suicide! This is a politically motivated moderation… not a change of heart!

Finally, there are those who believe we shouldn’t make any reforms to Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security out of a fear that any talk of change to these programs will usher in the sort of radical steps that House Republicans have proposed.
Here comes the dig that “Republicans will take Grandma’s check and give it to the rich while she starves and freezes in her cold, empty shack!” But Obama will make kinder, gentler “reforms”.

Indeed, to those in my own party, I say that if we truly believe in a progressive vision of our society, we have the obligation to prove that we can afford our commitments.

Yes, you have that obligation… and to date you have failed to offer that proof!

“I still believe. I believe in that great country that my grandfather told me about. I believe that somewhere lost in this quagmire of petty bickering on every news station, the ‘American Dream’ is still alive…

The American Dream IS alive. We are the land of equal OPPORTUNITY, not equality of outcome. If you seize the opportunities with both hands, work hard, and are willing to take risks… there are rewards. The biggest danger to the American Dream is the threat that as soon as you achieve it, the IRS will be there to take it away!

With both sides claiming victory in the recent budget battle brouhaha, it’s important to realize that, when the partisan rhetoric is stripped away, there are no winners and the American People are the ultimate loser! Trimming our discretionary budget by $39 billion reduces our deficit by around 2%! Meantime, our debt was increased by more than $50 billion in just the 8 days preceding the “historic cuts” deal!! Our wings have already fallen off… and we’ve convinced ourselves that, since we are still above the ground, we must be still flying! Sadly, the law of lift only supersedes the law of gravity for as long as the wings are generating lift! Denial of that fact will only produce a moment of surprise as we impact the ground!

We had a National Debt of $6 trillion when the balance of power in Congress shifted 4 years ago and Pelosi/Reid took the helm. In 4 years, they spent us into a debt of $14 trillion. It took 230 years and 44 presidents to rack up $6 trillion in debt… and Pelosi/Reid added $8 trillion in 4 years! And today the Democrat controlled Senate and the President can’t agree to more than $39 billion in cuts to a $1600 trillion deficit? There is no rational argument that can be made that the Trillion dollars added to the annual budget during the Pelosi/Reid tenure represents NECESSARY spending! Yet they’re unwilling to scratch the surface of dismantling that new structure! Why? Could it be that they are simply puppets executing the orders of one whose stated intent is to collapse the economy of the United States, and who is the money-man behind their campaigns and many of their pet projects? Obama, Pelosi and Reid are so beholden to George Soros that if he tells them to jump they ask permission to come back down while they’re on their way up!

REALITY CHECK:

There are only 3 ways to reduce a deficit. Increase Revenue, Reduce Discretionary Spending, and Reform and Reduce Entitlement Spending.

On the revenue side, we have shown by experience that tax rates and tax revenues are NOT directly proportional. Cutting tax rates has increased revenues every time it’s tried. We’ve also shown that Congress has an awful track record in dealing with revenue enhancements… When Reagan’s tax cuts DOUBLED revenues, the Tip O’Neal congress spent $1.84 for every dollar of new revenue!

Bill Whittle of PJTV produced an excellent video outlining what is required to fund our current spending levels for one year, titled “Eat the Rich” at http://youtu.be/661pi6K-8WQ. As he frighteningly points out, you CAN actually meet the spending for the year if you “eat the rich”. But what’s for dinner next year? There is no way we can appropriate enough funding to meet the insane spending levels we’ve reached. This spending is un-sustainable! The revenue side of the equation is simply not an option.

That leaves cutting either discretionary spending or making adjustments to entitlements.

Our current discretionary budget runs about $1.3 Trillion. That includes the military, all our departments, agencies, and non-entitlement programs. With our current deficit at around $1.6 trillion, that means that if we eliminated our entire discretionary budget, and funded only entitlements and interest on the debt, we’d still fall short by $300 billion!

Obviously the only viable answer to our spending problem is to address entitlements! Paul Ryan’s “Path to Prosperity” may not be perfect (nothing coming out of Washington ever is!) but it’s the first serious attempt to treat the disease and not simply give an aspirin for Cancer! Lifesaving surgery is often painful, and recovery is lengthy, uncomfortable, and difficult… and usually requires adjustments and accommodations. America has entered a new era and is faced with a new paradigm! It is time to acknowledge it. Prior administrations and prior congresses have “kicked the can down the road” for decades… knowing the problem was there, but delaying its inevitable consequence for as long as they remained players in power. But there was always a day of reckoning coming. The profligate spending of the last 4 years has merely hastened its arrival by a few years. The fact is, it’s HERE, and Americans must face that fact and be prepared to deal with that reality.

John Boehner declared that the 2012 budget battle will be over trillions and not billions. It remains to be seen whether he holds to that promise – but unless the GOP prevails in making draconian cuts and significant structural reforms, the house of cards built by the Progressives since Woodrow Wilson, FDR, and Johnson will collapse – and soon.

And remember, that is exactly what the puppetmaster, George Soros, has unabashedly stated he wanted from the get-go.

Does anyone remember Operation Cyclone? In 1979, Jimmy Carter began arming the Mujahidin in Afghanistan, and ordered the CIA to begin stirring Islamic unrest in the region to “destabilize” the area and help repel the “oppressive” Soviet Union. This action may well have made things more difficult for the Soviets, but it also set in motion the creation of Al Qaida and the Taliban! And, of course, Carter’s policies regarding Iran allowed the creation of the Islamic Republic, now the largest state sponsor of terror on the planet! One could well argue that Carter and his policies were contributory if not causative to the events leading to and following 9-11!

In his first 2 years in office, Barack Obama’s policies toward the Islamic World (and, concurrently toward our allies) have caused a lot of head scratching! It would be a lengthy and distracting tangent to pursue his history in this regard here. Suffice it to say that there are many examples where his foreign policy has been either incoherent or antithetical to our historical understanding of friend and foe.

But with his singlehandedly committing to military action in Libya, he has made an epic blunder which will be history-changing. (By single-handedly I mean without congressional consent . UN authorization and the cries of the Arabs notwithstanding!)
Isn’t it interesting that Al Qaida is cheering for our intervention to oppose Khadafy? WHY? If Khadafy’s demise is desirable to Al Qaida… isn’t that reason enough to question our complicity with it?

Remember that, despite his being a despotic and brutal dictator (what Islamic nation IS NOT under a brutal and dictatorial regime?) Khadafy was a muzzled mad-dog. After Reagan rang his bell with bombs falling around him he shut up. He did try striking back with the Lockerbie incident, but got slapped down again after that. When he saw what happened to Saddam Hussein… he shut down his nuke research, invited inspectors in, and began COOPERATING with us by providing intelligence. He kept Al Qaida at bay in northern Africa. So while he was a dictator ruling his country with an iron fist… he was actually SERVING the US vital interests!

So, with the current unrest – why should we get involved at all? Is there a vital US interest requiring us to commit US blood and treasure? Not according to Secretary Gates! He says we had no vital interests in the region!

President Obama tells us we are acting on the authority of the World Community! (So if the UN says “Jump”, he says “how high?” now?) Isn’t CONGRESS supposed to authorize military action? Is the Constitution now subordinate to the United Nations… that organization that’s been such a good friend and strong defender of America’s Vital Interests? (Sarcasm here.)

Obama claims “This is how the international community SHOULD work”. Really? The UN “authorizes” action and our military acts on their wishes without consent of Congress? Obama touts a “coalition”, yet Bush had twice as many countries on board HIS coalition when we initiated action against Iraq! Bush sought and received authorization from Congress to use military force. We had authorization from the UN as well, to use military action. Yet Bush was blamed for starting an “ILLEGAL” war and a “war for oil”.

(Interestingly, France and England, who were among those CALLING for a no-fly zone in Libya, did so in their own vital interests in the hope of securing Libyan oil… thus, a war for oil! America imports essentially NO Libyan oil so it’s of little to no vital interest to us!)

Joe Lieberman tells us that we’re doing the will of “the Arab street”! Are our military now taking orders from the UN and the Arabs? And what kind of allies have the Arab nations been to the US?

Having failed to make a case for this intervention on the basis of US vital Interests… the Administration is now trying to appeal to America’s humanitarian nature calling it a humanitarian cause to end “attrocities”. They trot out the case of a woman claiming to be raped by pro-Khadafy forces, for example. Tragic, if true, but pick up your local newspaper and you’ll find rapes and murders committed daily! Should we send in Tomahawks to New York, or Detroit, or DC because crimes are committed?

There is not a single Islamic nation on the planet where “atrocities” are not committed on a daily basis! There is civil unrest in most of them. Look at Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Rwanda and the Ivory Coast for example! People are hacked with machetes, limbs are cut off, people are buried to the waist and stoned, and kids have truck driven over their arms. That world is a brutal one. Should we intervene in all of them? (The Ivory Coast is the world’s largest producer of Cocoa… producing more than half the world’s supply. Should we intervene there to insure the free flow of chocolate at market prices? That would be a greater “vital interest of the United States” than is to be found in Libya!)

There is now an effort underway to provide arms to the Libyan rebels. Hearken back to Operation Cyclone! Isn’t that what CREATED the Taliban and Al Qaida? When Khadafy falls, WHO will fill the void? Who’s going to ultimately follow Mubarak in Egypt? The protesters cry “Democracy”, but what does that mean? Does anyone truly believe that a constitutional republic will be the result of the fall of these regimes? “Democracy” is Mob Rule – literally! (Look it up!) It has been said that Democracy is 2 wolves and a sheep taking a vote on what to have for dinner! Let us remember that “democracy” does not necessarily lead to freedom and individual liberty! Look at what happened in Gaza when they had “democratic” elections. They elected HAMAS! As a wiser man than I said in this context… “Democracy” means one-man, one-vote, ONE TIME! After that they’ll be right back under totalitarian rule… but this time it will be under a theocratic rule and Shari ‘a Law.

So, what is the meaning of all this unrest in the Middle East? CALIPHATE! Remember, the acolytes of the 12th Imam – the “Islamic Messiah” for lack of a better explanation – believe he will not come until the world is plunged into chaos. Iran’s Ahmadinejad IS such a 12th Imam believer and has STATED his goal to BRING ABOUT his return. This “popular uprising” among the Islamic nations has been fomented by Iran and other Jihadi influences. This is NOT a cry for western style freedom and liberty. It is a move to establish a world-wide caliphate.

And President Carter 2.0 is playing right into their hands, whether thru Carter-like incompetence or intentional complicity. Either should disqualify him from service as our Commander in Chief.

Before entering into any political discussion relative to the events following the Japanese earthquake and tsunami, I must first express my sympathies with and support for the people of Japan! What a horrific series of events they have endured and continue to face! “Tragedy” doesn’t begin to approach the magnitude of the impact on the nation of Japan and its people. Our thoughts and prayers are with them.

As I write this, the efforts to cool the Fukushima nuclear plants are still ongoing. The scale of the event is approaching that of the Three Mile Island accident, but at this stage is still well short of the Chernobyl disaster – and it is unlikely to ever progress to that level. There is hope that power will soon be restored and cooling will be enabled – which will be the first step to resolving the situation.

The problems with the Fukushima Nuclear Facility have re-ignited the debate and re-invigorated the Anti-Nuke crowd who now point to this incident as reason to abandon nuclear power.

It seems to me that this puts the Anti-Nuke, Anti-Fossil Fuel Enviro-nuts on the horns of a dilemma. If we can’t meet our energy needs with nuclear, and we can’t burn fossil fuels, how will they plug in their Chevy Volt? Windmills and solar panels blanketing our landscape couldn’t BEGIN to meet our energy demands!

To their argument that the Fukushima incident exemplifies an inherent flaw or failure of Nuclear Power, the clear answer is, “NONSENSE!”

Let us examine a few facts: There are many hundreds of nuclear power generation plants operating around the world. Sixteen countries depend on nuclear power for at least a quarter of their electricity. France gets around three quarters of its power from nuclear energy, while Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, Slovenia and Ukraine get one third or more. http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf01.html

Japan’s 55 plants produce 1/3 of the electrical power for that nation. Nuclear power generation has been around for over 40 years. In all that time and with all those plants operating, there have been so few incidents that the 2 big ones, 3 Mile Island and Chernobyl, are seared into our memory, and the more minor incidents are all but forgotten.

Most of these incidents involved short-lived releases of small amounts of radioactive contamination. But even the more serious events were hardly catastrophic… Who remembers October 5, 1966 when the core of an experimental reactor near Detroit, MI experienced a partial meltdown when its cooling system failed? http://www.atomicarchive.com/Reports/Japan/Accidents.shtml

Hundreds of nuclear plants have operated for decades without incident, and the last significant incident before the Fukushima event was in 1999 when workers at a Japanese plant mixing uranium with nitric acid to make nuclear fuel used too much uranium and accidentally set off an uncontrolled reaction. A number of plant workers were exposed to radiation, and local residents were ordered to stay indoors for a time. Not exactly a world-shaking event.

The point being that nuclear accidents are rare, and usually overblown. Even the 3-Mile Island incident has had few lasting effects.

Still, the radioactive material involved in nuclear power generation is indeed quite dangerous. Therefore, significant safeguards must be in place. The fact of the matter is… they ARE!

Let’s look at the Japanese situation. First, they experienced a 9.0 earthquake and HUNDREDS of 5+ pre and aftershocks. ALL 55 Japanese reactors WITHSTOOD this level of seismic activity! The Richter scale is logarithmic, where each whole number is 10 times the intensity of the previous number. Southern California has rarely experienced a quake above magnitude 7. Yet the Japanese quake was 100 times more powerful, and ALL their nuke plants withstood it! Fukushima was a unique situation unlikely to ever be replicated anywhere else in the world. A nuke plant built ON the San Andreas would never have experienced the intensity of quake that ALL 55 reactors in Japan successfully endured!

The earthquake triggered the procedures to shut down the reactor. This occurred as designed. The chain-reaction was stopped. The quake took out the local electrical power grid. The backup generators kicked in as designed. These backup generators had redundant backup generators behind them. And behind them, there were batteries. These redundant systems would keep the cooling system operational until normal electrical power could be restored. Except… the Tsunami struck.

The tsunami took out the generators. All of them. It also insured that electrical power from the grid wasn’t coming back anytime soon. When the batteries had been expended, cooling was lost and the problems began. Fukushima is a unique situation. A “perfect storm” of cataclysm converged on this plant – one unlikely to ever be replicated anywhere else on the planet!

There is virtual certainty that the Fukushima situation will not progress out of control to anything approaching the Chernobyl disaster. Yes, some radiation was released and this is a significant mishap. But the reaction to this event is overblown. In the immediate vicinity of the plant, during the period of time until the radiation is contained, there is certainly a danger. But the panic in the USA and the run on potassium iodide is mere hysteria. The effect on the USA will be little more than going thru the TSA’s naked scanner a time or two!

Once power is available to re-enable cooling, the situation will be brought under control in short order thereafter. The Fukushima plant may well be damaged beyond the point of ever bringing it back online to produce electricity… but the “fallout” from the incident will likely be far more impactful politically than physically.

Soaking the rich as a revenue remedy to Government’s fiscal woes is a mathematically provable myth!

Perhaps the math might have worked (though the logistics still would have failed) back in the days of President Bush, whose worst deficit (2003) was only around $420 Billion, and whose tax cuts raised revenues enough to reduce that deficit down to 120 Billion the last year before Pelosi/Reid took the reins of Congress, and tripled that in one year, and tripled it AGAIN the next year! But given the realities of the damage done by the 110th and 111th Congresses, we have spent ourselves into an oblivion that the so-called “rich” cannot bail us out of if we confiscated EVERYTHING THEY EARN!!

But here are some figures you MUST LEARN and be able to use to dispel the myth when the leftists try to use the REVENUE side of the equation when it comes to getting the Government’s fiscal house in order.

Our Deficit is 1.6 TRILLION DOLLARS. To make that more understandable to those confused by big numbers… that is 1600 Billion dollars, or 1.6 Million Millions of dollars.

The Deficit is not the DEBT. The deficit is our annual shortfall of OUTGO versus INCOME! It has been said, “When your outgo exceeds your income, your upkeep will be your downfall!”

There are approximately 330 million people (men, women AND children) in the USA. That means this year’s Federal Spending will exceed tax revenue income by around $4850 for each and every one of us, including our infants and our elderly and our infirm!
Our DEBT is around 14 Trillion, or 14,000 Billion. The debt is the cumulative shortfall of all our deficits since Washington, less all our surpluses. That’s on the order of $42,500 for each of us.

But these numbers, while disturbing, don’t prove my initial postulation that it is impossible to soak the rich and resolve our fiscal crisis!

So, here’s the proof:

According to the latest Government Figures, the earnings total of all people in the USA was around 7.8 Trillion Dollars a year. Of that, those earning $200,000 a year represented 17.5% of the total, or approximately 1.37 Trillion.

If we TOOK EVERYTHING MADE by those earning $200,000 or more, we fall significantly short of our 1.6 Trillion deficit!

But remember, these people are ALREADY paying taxes out of that number! If we estimate a current net tax burden after deductions and “loopholes” of 25%, that means we can only appropriate another 75% of that $1.37 Trillion - if we took EVERYTHING from EVERYONE earning $200,000 or more! So we could further reduce our deficit by not 1.37 Trillion but by only 1.03 Trillion! In other words, we’d STILL have a deficit of $600 Billion… almost 50% higher than Bush’s worst deficit with a GOP Congress!

Remember also that on the spending side, Discretionary Spending is only around $1.3 Trillion of our $3.7 Trillion budget. If we eliminated ALL Discretionary Spending, and funded ONLY Entitlements and interest payments on the debt, we’d be left with a $300 Billion deficit!

Cutting a billion here and a million there from our Discretionary Budget might make for politically expedient rhetoric that might help an incumbent gain more re-election votes… but it is merely arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic!

The Uncomfortable Truth is that this ship is going DOWN unless we tackle the real and ONLY real problem: Entitlement Spending!

Sweat shops. Child Labor. Exploitation. Yeah, we get it. Labor unions were formed to address legitimate grievances of labor and to right serious wrongs. And they have served a useful purpose in assuring the quality of the trades.

I have no beef with trade unions, and most especially not with the rank and file union member. Most union workers are hard working honest people who desire nothing more to earn a good living and provide for their families.

Collective bargaining has its place in the private sector free market. Let labor bargain for the best deal they can get! Fair enough.

BUT, if the company over-commits, and agrees to wages and benefits that are unsustainable… they should either downsize or face bankruptcy! It is not the responsibility of the American Taxpayer to bail them out! The workers who bargain themselves into unaffordability will find themselves jobless. And that is a market-based correction to an overreach!

In the Private Sector, the Company exists to make a profit for its stakeholders. Management bargains with Labor, representing the interests of those stakeholders and Labor bargains on behalf of the worker. They arrive at an agreement which provides the needed labor at a sustainable cost which permits the profits which allow the Company to continue to operate and to continue to employ the workers. While there is some latitude for bargaining, both sides recognize that there is a balance that must be maintained to keep both labor and stakeholders happy, and that an imbalance toward EITHER side will destabilize the ability for the Company to continue earning profits and employing labor.

The Public Sector is another matter entirely. Unfortunately, this balance does not exist in the Public Sector, as NO ONE at the bargaining table represents the true stakeholder… the taxpayer!

In the public sector, the employer is the Bureaucratic GOVERNMENT! The Management, negotiating the contracts on behalf of the employer consists of elected officials, who seek power and seek re-election.

The Public Sector Unions exist more to deliver votes to these elected officials than to “represent” the workers… but because of this incestuous relationship, whereby Union Dues support the campaigns of the officials who will ultimately decide the pay and benefits of the unions, the workers get the sweetheart deals.

The Elected Officials get campaign contributions out the Wazoo. They’re happy.
Oh yeah – I neglected to mention – Big Labor supports DEMOCRAT elected officials with more than 90% of their political contributions.

So everyone’s happy, right? Everyone except the STAKEHOLDER… The Taxpayer! The guy who foots the bill for both Labor and Management in this enterprise has NO SEAT at the table! Collective bargaining in the public sector is a huge conflict of interest, an incestuous relationship – ripe for corruption, and completely disregards the people the Government exists to serve… the taxpayer.

Wages and benefits grow to the point of unsustainability, as we’re seeing in CA, NY, NJ, WI, OH, IN, MI etc. The Democrats keep kicking the can down the road, avoiding the necessary day of reckoning when the reality comes to light that they simply can’t afford what they’ve promised. But when a Chris Christie or a Scott Walker simply speaks the truth that the State is BROKE and CANNOT continue to fund the goodies these public sector unions have enjoyed historically – the unions go berserk!

The unrest we are seeing in Wisconsin, and which is spreading to other states, is being likened in the mainstream press to an Egypt-style cry for freedom! What a disingenuous comparison! These public sector workers currently receive their healthcare and pensions FOR FREE!! Without any contribution on their parts! Talk about a sweetheart deal!! Show me a private sector UNION employee who gets that today!

No, these union uprisings are not like Egypt at all. They are like France and Greece! The Riots of the Entitled! This is what happens when the Entitled discover their Socialist Utopia has run out of other people’s money!

The fact of the matter is that Walker’s proposals WILL become law. Public Sector Unions WILL lose their right to bargain for benefits, and Right to Work WILL spread to more states. The pendulum MUST swing back from the extremes of its arc.

When a child is told by his mommy that he can’t have a desired toy because Mommy can’t afford it, he’ll often throw a tantrum. This is what we are seeing in Wisconsin today. But when the tantrum doesn’t work and mother and son leave the store without the toy, what happens? After a period of sulking, the boy will eventually accept the inevitable and get on about the business of living his life.

Public Sector Unions had best get the message that concessions are inevitable and accept it. Governments, whether municipality, city, state or federal, are out of money and running out of the ability to borrow! You can’t spend what you don’t have, in perpetuity. A day of reckoning MUST COME! For Public Employees, it’s here.

President Obama has submitted his budget proposal, and unsurprisingly it calls for an even bigger deficit and more spending! Fortunately, the GOP-controlled House is sending the Administration a message reminiscent of Tip-O’Neal’s “dead on arrival” response to Reagan’s austere budgets.

Obama is calling for a 3.5 Trillion dollar budget. Of that, more than $1.5 Trillion is deficit spending, meaning that for every dollar we spend, nearly 43 cents is new debt. Borrowed money which future generations must pay back, with interest!

Said another way, wherever we can afford $57, we spend $100!

The President claims his budget will cut $1.1 Trillion over the next decade. Even if that were true (and there’s no evidence to suggest that it is!) that is a cut of $110 Billion a year on a $3.5 Trillion budget with a $1.5 Trillion deficit! Correct me if I’m wrong, but that’s a reduction of the deficit by a factor of around 1/15!

Let’s apply that formula to something a little closer to home. Let’s suppose I’m spending $45,000 a year more than I make, and I’m half a million in debt.

Do you think my cutting $3000 a year from my spending habits would keep me from bankruptcy?? Of course not! But the Keynesians STILL believe that they can spend themselves into prosperity!

Keynesian tax-and-spend economics, the mainstay of Progressive economic policy for nearly 100 years, has been attractive to Socialist Utopian Academics… because it fits their narrative and agenda. When tested in the laboratory of REAL LIFE, however, their hypotheses fall flat time after time. The failed “Stimulus” of 2009 should have erased any vestige of doubt and put the final nail in the coffin of the Keynesian model. Keynes is to economics what the Flat Earthers were to Geo-Science!

The Left decries conservative proposals to cut the budget as “Draconian”… but pay attention to the numbers!

Remember that a BILLION is 1000 MILLION, and a TRILLION is a MILLION MILLION!

Our current deficit is 1.5 Trillion. Obama is willing to cut 110 Billion!! But he says he has to raise taxes to do it!!

Congressman Ryan recently complained about not having a “baseline” for budgeting. May I suggest using the FY 2006 Budget as your starting point?

This was the last budget passed by a GOP congress before Pelosi/Reid took the reigns of Congress and began spending us into oblivion, tripling the deficit every 2 years and raising our debt from 6 Trillion to 14 Trillion in 4 short years! In 2006 our deficit was only around $120 Billion… it’s currently almost 15 times larger! Why don’t we START with a BASELINE that undoes Pelosi/Reid spending?

In the 4 years that Pelosi/Reid were in power, our debt more than doubled. They increased our debt by 8 TRILLION in 4 years! When President Bush took office, our debt was only 4 (FOUR) Trillion dollars! After 6 years, the debt was increased by 50% to 6 Trillion, and Bush was roundly (and deservedly) criticized. In 2003 the deficit was around 420 Billion. This was after 9/11, the dot-com bubble burst, and the runup and execution of the combat phase of 2 wars!

In 2003 Bush and the GOP Congress passed tax cuts, and consequently the deficit was reduced each of the following 3 years, so that when Pelosi/Reid took the reins, we were on track for a balanced budget in a year or two! When the GOP lost control of the house, they had reduced the deficit to 1/3 of the 2003 level – around 120 Billion.

It is now time to wake up and smell the coffee. We are 14 TRILLION in debt, so the INTEREST on that debt has more than doubled in 4 years. We are in a hole we may NEVER be able to climb out of… but certainly the first step MUST be to STOP DIGGING!

You will hear a lot of talk about “discretionary” spending. This encompasses our Military spending (both wartime operational expenses and the baseline expenses to maintain a standing military), as well as all other regulatory and operational costs of government. The sum total of our “discretionary” spending is around 1.2 or 1.3 Trillion dollars.

The remainder of our budget is the so-called “mandatory” spending. This is a misnomer. These expenses, with the exception of interest on the National Debt, are “ENTITLEMENTS”. Since the constitution neither mandates nor authorizes these “take from Peter to pay Paul” transfers of wealth, how can they be termed “Mandatory”? But I digress!

It is essential that we address the problem of entitlement spending. Congress must acknowledge that if we were to eliminate ALL discretionary spending and ONLY fund entitlements and interest on the debt, we’d still be left with a budget shortfall of around 250 BILLION DOLLARS!! Without operating a government AT ALL except to transfer money, we’d STILL be a quarter of a Trillion dollars deeper in the hole every year!

STOP DIGGING!! We must cut entitlements, significantly. Yes, there’s discretionary spending that can be trimmed. But again – cutting ALL discretionary spending won’t be enough to balance the budget. Entitlements MUST be addressed. It’s fiscal Armageddon if we don’t.

Ignorance and stupidity, while often misapplied as being synonymous, are not the same! Ignorance is a changeable state of the lack of knowledge. Being uninformed does not make one stupid. Stupidity, on the other hand, is an immutable state characterized by a lack of capability to understand or learn. Galactic Stupidity is the willful refusal to try to learn or understand, despite posessing the capability to do so - and this, too, is often an immutable state! These people are known in the book of Proverbs as "fools".

There is no point in addressing my commentary to the stupid. However there are many people who are ignorant on the topic of economics and taxes... as there are very few sources of true and accurate information with which to educate them! For this reason, I have taken it upon myself to write several recent pieces addressing these issues

The purpose of this particular article is to serve as a letter directly to those who are ignorant of, but willing to learn, the facts and the truth about taxes. If you can assimilate the following five facts, you will have a greater understanding than the vast majority of people who are spoonfed the Marxist Pablum of the Progressive Media Machine. You will then understand why conservatives are passionate on the subject, and you may even become motivated to share this information with others!

1) We did not just pass tax cuts. We retained tax rates that have been in place most of the last decade. We prevented an automatic tax hike.

2) The left complains that tax cuts have to be paid for. As mentioned, we haven't cut taxes, we kept them the same... but that fact notwithstanding, this premise is faulty. Tax cuts don't have to be "paid for." Tax rates are not directly related to tax revenues!! Tax cuts have INCREASED revenues every time they've been tried. Kennedy, Reagan, & Bush all proved this. Reagan's tax cuts DOUBLED revenues. (This is because reducing taxes unshackles the engine of the economy - spurring growth, investment and risk taking - and this leads to job creation and revenue producing enterprise!)

3) Deficits are not a factor of revenues. They are a factor of SPENDING. When Reagan DOUBLED tax revenues, Congress spent $1.84 for every new $1 in revenues... and the deficits climbed DESPITE a doubling of revenue. We're not under taxed. Congress over-spends.

4) Our current Deficit is over a TRILLION a year and has been since Obama took office. Bush's WORST Deficit was in 2003, after 9/11 and the committment to 2 wars. It was under $450 Billion. After the 2003 tax cuts, the deficit was cut in half in 2004, and was 1/3 of the 2003 deficit in 2005. We were headed back to a balanced budget. Then we elected the 111th Pelosi/Reid Congress. In 2007 they tripled the 2005 deficit to around $480 Billion. This was their BEST deficit, and it was 30 Billion more than Bush's WORST. Then Obama was elected in 2008. The Deficit blossomed to over a TRILLION dollars... which tripled the previous worst deficit in history, which occurred under Pelosi/Reid... the year before!

5) Our current debt (as opposed to the annual deficit) is $14+ Trillion. When Obama took office, it was "only" $9 Trillion. In 2 years he managed to increase the national debt by more than 50%! When Pelosi/Reid took the majority in Congress the Debt was only $6 Trillion. In their 4 years, they managed to increase by 2.5 TIMES, the debt that it took the previous 230 years and 44 Presidents to amass. (BUSH was villified for taking our debt from 4 Trillion to 6 Trillion in 6 years. The Dems took it from 6 Trillion to 14 Trillion in 4 years.)

Our problem is not and never has been a matter of under taxing ANYONE. It has always been a matter of irrational spending of money they DON'T HAVE.

Fans of "The Hitchhikers Guide…" will recognize the phrase, and will state that the answer is "Forty Two". But when considering today's economic and political atmosphere, I have another answer.

1) The economy is NOT a Zero Sum Game. You don't deprive someone else by becoming successful yourself. You don't make the poor richer by making the rich poorer. You improve the lot of ALL by growing the economy and increasing the size of the pie! A rising tide raises all boats!

3) Deficits are a function of SPENDING not Revenues. When Reagan's tax cuts doubled revenue, the Tip O'Neal Dem Congresses spent $1.84 for every $1 in increased revenue! Reagan got blamed for huge deficits (which were MINISCULE compared to today's deficits!) but he submitted BALANCED budgets. They were famously declared "dead on arrival" by Tip O'Neal, and Congress spent themselves silly!

4) You can't tax and spend your way into prosperity – especially when you're 9 Trillion (OOPS, that's a 2 year old figure… Current number is over 14 Trillion) in debt! Winston Churchill one observed, "We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle."

Rev William J. H. Boetcker published a pamphlet in 1916 known at "The 10 Cannots". Often misattributed to Lincoln, these 10 statements embody a tremendous wealth of wisdom and truth:

You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.

You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.

You cannot help little men by tearing down big men.

You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.

You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.

You cannot establish sound security on borrowed money.

You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.

You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than you earn.

You cannot build character and courage by destroying men's initiative and independence.

And you cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they can and should do for themselves.

WHY are Progressives so obsessively adamant about raising taxes on the "wealthiest Americans?

Answer: The left REALLY DOES BELIEVE the Zero Sum Game myth.

In their view, there's only so much sand in the sandbox. You can't pile up a lot of sand in one corner without depriving the rest of the sandbox

By this logic, if you succeed beyond a certain point, you're DEPRIVING someone somewhere of the opportunity to make a decent living! FAIRNESS DEMANDS that they smooth out the sandbox! And since it's a "zero sum game", by making the rich poorer, automatically and magically they improve the lot of the poor!

The fact is that the economy is neither zero sum, nor is it static. It expands or contracts based on the BEHAVIORS of the participants! Innovation, invention, provision of needed services, advancement of knowledge, investment in new ideas etc all generate NEW wealth. It is not simply a matter of shuffling around a limited money supply.

When you ENCOURAGE these activities (by reduced taxes and reduced regulation and government intrusion) you UNLEASH the engine of the economy to churn and burn and heat up… and to grow and expand. Conversely, when you hamstring the economy with overregulation, overtaxation, and excessive intrusion – you put ankle weights on the runners that drive the economy and you experience contraction and slowdown. This discourages risk taking. This discourages business expansion and job creation.

Equal Opportunity does not guarantee equality of outcomes. Still, whether your share is a large slice or a small slice of pie… if the economy grows, the pie gets bigger and everyone gets a bigger piece of pie!

Missouri Democratic Senator, Claire McCaskill, has been cited as one of the more vulnerable Democrat senators facing re-election in 2012. Unsurprisingly, ever since the Mid-Term elections of November 2010, she had been making a concerted effort to appear more moderate. But that ended recently as she spoke about the effort to extend the current tax rates for ALL Americans, including the top earners. As she spoke, she lurched violently to the left!

Here are her comments, verbatim:

“I’m trying to figure out how anyone in America can take the Republican Party seriously about deficit reduction. I’m trying to figure out how anyone can keep a straight face and say they’re for deficit reduction while they insist on a permanent tax cut for the wealthiest Americans… completely unpaid for.

Now, they want to say this is class warfare. Well… y’know, in a way it is. Because we’re fighting for the middle class. We are fighting for the middle class. Frankly, the middle class hasn’t had enough champions in America.

Seventy percent of American don’t itemize deductions. That big-old complex tax code… It’s been written for wealthy Americans. The ones that itemize deductions. And then you get to the very very top… where a lot of these peoples income is all about dividends and capital gains, and not even ordinary income; and they have all kinds of ways that they can use the tax code to avoid paying taxes.

This is about leveling the playing field, for what has always made our country different than everyone else. That is a strong, vibrant middle class. And I will tell you this: If they think it’s ok to raise taxes for the embattled middle class because they’re going to pout if we don’t give more money to millionaires… it really is time for the people of America to take up pitchforks.

And all those people that are out there in the Tea Party that are angry about the economics of Washington; they really need to look at this. They need to pull back the curtain and realize that you’ve got a republican party that’s not worried about the people in the Tea Party; they’re worried about people that can’t decide which home to go to over the Christmas Holidays. They’re worried about the people who think they may take a jaunt to Europe for the new year. They’re not worried about those people who are packing those town halls. Cause those folks are the middle class.

So yes, we’re going to continue to fight for the middle class. We’ve net cut taxes $400 Billion in the last 8 months. Targeted like a laser on the middle class and small business. And we’re going to continue to fight for that middle class and for those small businesses. Throughout the end of this year, and all through next year, and beyond.

But please quit taking these guys seriously about the deficit. What a joke!”

How anyone can listen to the entire statement without choking is beyond me – I had to take it in small chunks. But let’s dissect the statement, a phrase or a sentence at a time… because there are very few instances where 2 or more sentences are strung together without a massive error, lie or misdirection!

“I’m trying to figure out how anyone in America can take the Republican Party seriously about deficit reduction. I’m trying to figure out how anyone can keep a straight face and say they’re for deficit reduction while they insist on a permanent tax cut for the wealthiest Americans… completely unpaid for.

Ok, so she can’t see how Republicans are serious about Deficit Reduction. Let’s not even spend much ink on the fact that the deficit was TRIPLED in Obama’s first year… or the fact that this TRILLION Dollar Deficit is only the first of MANY Trillion Dollar deficits, projected out as far as the eye can see!

Claire thinks that one cannot support lower taxes and be consistent with calls for reduced deficits. I could write an entire piece on this myth alone, but lets examine this presumption she adheres to.

First, she is relying upon an economic myth foisted upon the American population. The myth that tax RATES are directly proportional to tax REVENUES. They are emphatically NOT! Raising tax rates has historically put a damper on economic growth, and rarely results in significant gains in revenue. But more importantly, tax rate REDUCTIONS have universally stimulated the economy and resulted in INCREASED revenues. This is provable every time it’s been tried. It happened under Kennedy. It happened under Reagan (whose tax cuts DOUBLED federal revenues!!) It happened under Bush. Therefore, reducing taxes doesn’t COST… it PAYS!! The concept of “paying for” rate reductions is a lie.

Deficits are NEVER a factor of insufficient taxation. They are not a function of revenues. Deficits are a function of SPENDING! As mentioned, Reagan DOUBLED revenues after his tax cuts. But all you’ll hear about the Reagan economic policy is the so-called “Reagan Deficits”. The fact is that these were the Tip O’Neal deficits!!! The Democrat Congress at the time, under the leadership of former Speaker Tip O’Neal, spent $1.84 in new spending for every $1 in new revenue generated by the tax rate reductions!

Reagan submitted balanced budgets to Congress. They were famously declared “dead on arrival” by the Tip O’Neal House.

Now, they want to say this is class warfare. Well… y’know, in a way it is. Because we’re fighting for the middle class.

Well, I’m glad she actually admitted it! It IS INDEED class warfare. This feeds another Democrat propagated myth: The myth of the “Zero Sum Game”. This fallacy posits that the economy is a closed system. That in order for someone to have more, someone else must have less. Thus anyone who succeeds above a certain point is depriving someone else of a decent living… and fairness demands a redistribution to “level the playing field”.

But the economy is NOT a zero sum game! You don’t make the poor richer by making the rich poorer. You make EVERYONE more prosperous by growing the economy! You may get a smaller slice of the pie than someone else, but by growing the pie, you still get more pie! Or, as Reagan said… a rising tide lifts all boats.

Seventy percent of American don’t itemize deductions.

That’s true! But not because they’re not ELIGIBLE to do so! Many people pay more in taxes than they have to, because they DON’T go through the trouble to itemize. EVERY HOMEOWNER should consider itemizing… but so many people just want to just get thru the oppressive tax process – especially if they’re going to get a refund by just taking the standard deduction… that they’ll file a quick and easy form! But this is a function of ignorance, and laziness and not some conspiracy to aid the rich!

And then you get to the very very top… where a lot of these peoples income is all about dividends and capital gains, and not even ordinary income; and they have all kinds of ways that they can use the tax code to avoid paying taxes.

I’m guessing she forgot that most Senior Citizens (those who aren’t COMPLETELY dependent on the Government Social Security dole) are relying on “dividends and capital gains” to pay their bills and keep food on the table! Not everyone receiving dividends and capital gains is a top-hat and monocle wearing moneybag.

This is about leveling the playing field, for what has always made our country different than everyone else. That is a strong, vibrant middle class.

Yeah. That “leveling the playing field” I mentioned with the Zero Sum myth. This is a primary tenet of the Socialist and the Communist. Redistribution of Wealth. “From each according to his ability – to each according to his need”. She wants to expand the middle class by pulling the wealthy down into it!

If they think it’s ok to raise taxes for the embattled middle class…

THEY DON’T! The GOP wasn’t trying to raise taxes on ANYONE! They were trying to PREVENT AUTOMATIC INCREASES! If NOTHING were done, EVERYONE would suffer a massive Obama Tax Hike. Even Obama didn’t want that! But the GOP was adamant that the current rates… the rates that had been in force since 2003… should be allowed to continue for everyone! There is no reason to impose a massive Obama Tax Hike on ANYONE, including the upper incomes! This was the basis for the debate.

…because they’re going to pout if we don’t give more money to millionaires…

How is preventing a massive tax increase and retaining current rates equated to GIVING money to ANYONE? What kind of leftist stupid-speak is it that presumes money EARNED and BELONGING to the earner is actually property of the Government, and is GIVEN to anyone? How is MAINTAINING CURRENT TAX RATES somehow a gift to the wealthy?

…it really is time for the people of America to take up pitchforks.

REALLY, Claire? I thought it was those evil Tea Partiers calling for violence in the streets!! (Sarcasm) Can you imagine the uproar if Glenn Beck or Sarah Palin made such a statement!!

And all those people that are out there in the Tea Party that are angry about the economics of Washington; they really need to look at this. They need to pull back the curtain and realize that you’ve got a republican party that’s not worried about the people in the Tea Party; they’re worried about people that can’t decide which home to go to over the Christmas Holidays. They’re worried about the people who think they may take a jaunt to Europe for the new year. They’re not worried about those people who are packing those town halls. Cause those folks are the middle class.

One must remember that the upper income earners are the driving force behind job creation in this country. They are business owners who hire people. When they are successful, they expand their businesses and hire more people. They are consumers who buy things that middle class people have jobs to produce. They patronize services performed by middle class workers. I wrote recently about the unintended consequences upon the middle class that were inflicted by the class warriors of the 80s who passed a punitive tax on luxury yachts. When the wealthy stopped buying yachts and found other places to spend their money, it was the industries, businesses and services that were depending upon the yachting community that suffered. Boatbuilders lost jobs. Marinas closed. Restaurants near marinas suffered. You get the idea. In the end these middle class workers who were directly hurt by the tax lobbied Congress LOUDLY and ultimately this punitive luxury tax was repealed as a miserable failure and boondoggle. Enough time has passed that most people have forgotten this chapter in our economic history. It is therefore appropriate to remind you.

So yes, we’re going to continue to fight for the middle class. We’ve net cut taxes $400 Billion in the last 8 months. Targeted like a laser on the middle class and small business. And we’re going to continue to fight for that middle class and for those small businesses. Throughout the end of this year, and all through next year, and beyond.

But please quit taking these guys seriously about the deficit. What a joke!”

You can’t demonstrate tax benefits like that, Claire! We may have realized a reduction in revenues – because leftist policies have dragged the economy to a crawl… but there have been no NET TAX BENEFITS.

And if ANYONE wants to get serious about the deficit, the issue is SPENDING, not revenues. As demonstrated every time... Tax REDUCTIONS increase revenues. Tax INCREASES rarely succeed in raising revenues. And Democrat majorities spend nearly $2 for every $1 in increased revenues.

Conversely, spending and deficits have gone DOWN whenever we’ve had GOP majorities!

Early in Clinton’s administration, he refinanced the debt with short term low interest paper. This began a reduction in deficits as interest payments were reduced. Unfortunately this was a political move to make him look good, as he knew he’d have to refinance that debt at a higher rate a couple years later. But in 1996 the Gingrich Revolution brought about a power shift in Washington. For the first time in nearly 50 years, the GOP was the majority in Congress. This began a series of annual reductions in the deficit that ultimately crossed that magic line and we had a couple years of surplus. This was under a GOP Congress, though CLINTON gets the credit! (Of course it’s CONGRESS that has the power of the purse, but that fact is only applied when it benefits the left!)

The surpluses continued until 9/11 and the dot com bust. This was followed by the run up and implementation of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. There were significant deficits in 2001 thru 2003. Sadly, these are what is touted by the left against the Bush Presidency. But what followed is conveniently ignored.

In 2003, Bush passed the Tax Cuts. In 2004, the deficit of 2003 was cut in HALF. In 2005, the deficit was 1/3 of the 2003 deficit. We were on our way back to a balanced budget.

Then came 2006 and the power shift in Congress. The 111th Pelosi-Reid congress was elected in November 2006 and seated in January 2007.

The 2005 deficit was tripled.

Then Barack Obama took office. And the 2008 deficit was tripled, and deficits crossed into territory never CONCEIVED of before. TRILLION dollar deficits.

WHO are the ones uninterested in deficit reduction? The ones who spent $787 Billion in Stimulus? The ones who gave us ObamaCare? The ones who are trying to give us Cap and Trade?

As the expiration of the Bush Era Tax Cuts looms and Congress debates what to do next, it is perhaps useful to revisit the facts, and some basic understanding of what they mean.

Let’s first establish the fact that the current issue is not one of tax CUTS. We’re talking about EXISTING tax rates that have been in force for a decade. No one is talking about cutting taxes for the rich. The issue is whether to allow automatic tax INCREASES to take place… and whether to shield ANYONE or EVERYONE from these automatic increases. If these Obama Tax Increases take place, they will represent the largest tax hike in American History!

Conservatives take the position that it is unwise and unproductive (not to mention unfair) to raise taxes on anyone at all during a period of economic turmoil such as we are currently experiencing. Further, it would do damage to the employment prospects of the working classes if more of the income of those in a position to create jobs were to be confiscated in taxes!

Liberals take the position that only the so-called “middle class” deserves to have their tax rates preserved, and that the “rich” (defined as those earning over $250K annually) aren’t paying their fair share and should have their taxes raised.

Before going into the dry economic realities that are embodied in these diametrically opposed positions represent, let me first share a parable which has made the circuit of viral email. It very clearly and accurately portrays our “progressive” tax system in a way even a Liberal steeped in Academia and Leftist Propaganda can understand it!

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for dinner. The bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men — the poorest — would pay nothing; the fifth would pay $1, the sixth would pay $3, the seventh $7, the eighth $12, the ninth $18, and the tenth man — the richest — would pay $59.

That's what they decided to do. The ten men ate dinner in the restaurant every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement — until one day, the owner threw them a curve (in tax language a tax cut).

"Since you are all such good customers," he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily meal by $20." So now dinner for the ten only cost $80.00.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes. So the first four men were unaffected. They would still eat for free. But what about the other six — the paying customers? How could they divvy up the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his "fair share?"

The six men realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, Then the fifth man and the sixth man would end up being PAID to eat their meal. So the restaurant owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same proportion, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.

And so the fifth man now paid nothing, the sixth pitched in $2, the seventh paid $5, the eighth paid $9, the ninth paid $12, leaving the tenth man with a bill of $52 instead of his earlier $59. Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to eat for free.

But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings. "I only got a dollar out of the $20," declared the sixth man who pointed to the tenth. "But he got $7!"

"Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man, "I only saved a dollar, too . . . It's unfair that he got seven times more than me!".

"That's true!" shouted the seventh man, "why should he get $7 back when I got only $2? The wealthy get all the breaks!"

"Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison, "We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!"

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up. The next night he didn't show up for dinner, so the nine sat down and ate without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered, a little late what was very important. They were FIFTY-TWO DOLLARS short of paying the bill! Imagine that!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and college instructors, is how the tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up at the table anymore. There are lots of good restaurants in Monaco and the Caribbean.

Where would that leave the rest? Unfortunately, most taxing authorities anywhere cannot seem to grasp this rather straightforward logic!

Given the fact that 40% of American Wage Earners pay NO income tax, and in fact, some receive back money in credits that exceed any withholding contribution, we can see that the progressive tax structure already soaks the rich and executes a form of wealth redistribution!

Given the fact that the top 1% of wage earners pays almost 30% of the tax bill, and the top 10% pays nearly 60%... how can one argue they don’t pay their “fair share”? Class warfare is simply jealousy combined with the Democrat fostered myth that the economy is a Zero Sum Game. For someone to have more, someone else must get less. This is patently untrue, but the myth feeds the narrative.

The other myth Democrats propagate is that tax rates are directly proportional to revenues. This has been disproven every time tax cuts have been tried! Tax RATES affect economic activity. LOWERING tax rates spurs economic growth, and results in an INCREASE in tax revenues. Kennedy proved this. Reagan proved this. Bush proved this. It happens EVERY time it’s tried. Deficits are never a function of revenues. They are a function of spending. Under Reagan, tax cuts DOUBLED revenues, yet the deficit went up because the Democrat controlled Congress spent $1.84 in new spending for every $1 of new revenues!

It is essential to remember that it is the very populace the Democrats seek to slap with punishing tax increases who are the engine behind hiring and job creation. Whether the $250K+ person is a business owner, who will hold off expansion and hiring, or whether (s)he simply won’t hire a maid or buy a luxury item that wage-earners work to produce… jobs are dependent on the wealthy!

Let me give you a real-world example of how taxing the “rich” hurts the middle class:

During the 80s there was a “soak the rich” sentiment that resulted in a luxury tax being levied upon “yachts” – pleasure boats of a certain size that lawmakers deemed out of the reach of the middle class, and a conspicuous luxury “toy” of the hated rich. The class warriors were pleased when this tax was passed. The “rich” would be punished for their extravagance.

But what happened?

The “rich” found other toys for their distractions. Instead of paying the higher taxes for their yachts, they stopped buying yachts.

Oh, and there was also little in the way of additional tax REVENUE generated by the tax, as so few yachts actually sold!

Who WASN’T hurt? The rich! They simply found other ways to spend their money! But those who WERE hurt complained, LOUDLY, to congress. The result? That failure of a Luxury Yacht Tax was repealed!

Congress must begin to understand that the power to tax is not given them to control people or to redistribute wealth. The constitutional power to tax is only to raise revenue for the legitimate expenditures on the legitimate activities of the Federal Government. And if it isn’t in Article II of the Constitution – it isn’t a legitimate activity!

Raising taxes ANY time is a bad idea. It does not enhance revenue. It puts an ankle weight on those who are the runners in our economy. But raising taxes on the engine of job creation during what could be argued as the worst economy since the Great Depression is SUICIDAL.